You Must Believe in Spring
by Fivery
Summary: There's a time when we all must figure out whether holding onto the past is an act of faith or fantasy, and sometimes the answer's more surprising than you think. AU after DW Series 3, TW Series 1, and SJA Series 1. Spoilers accordingly.
1. Chapter One

"I thought this was supposed to be a promotion," Rose grumbled from behind her clipboard, squinting as she attempted to read the impossibly tiny serial number off the side of the storage box she was cataloguing.

"You're just not used to it," a slightly muffled male voice sounded from the next aisle. "Might not look like it now, but you'll develop a certain fondness." Three more containers identical to the one she was holding pushed themselves further down the shelf, revealing the earnest face of the young man speaking. "I'm telling you, give it a week or so more, and you'll feel right at home."

"Doubt it, Davies," she rolled her eyes. "It's been two weeks already, and the only thing I'm developing is a need for bifocals." She stopped, crinkling her nose as she realized she'd lost her place in her object's long identification code. "Oh, _sod it_!" She exclaimed, a good bit louder than she'd intended.

"Agent Tyler!" A new voice, pointed and feminine, pierced the otherwise silent hall, and the telltale _click_ of treacherously sharp heels approached. "This conduct is _decidedly_ unprofessional."

Rose bowed her head in feigned deference. "Apologies, Ms. Price," she murmured, inwardly scoffing at the woman standing in front of her. "Got a little carried away."

"I should say so," the older woman remarked, pursing her lips in what Rose thought was a rather pretentious sort of way. "I don't know what's considered appropriate down in Field Research, but _here _we like to pay a little bit more attention to professionalism and decorum on an everyday basis."

"Understood, ma'am," Rose nodded.

"That includes," Agent Price continued, with a sneer, "_footwear._" Rose blushed, staring down at her pink trainers. "I expect something a little more suitable next time."

"Certainly, Ms. Price."

Nodding curtly, Price turned to leave, when the open space in the otherwise completely uniform shelf of steel boxes caught her eye. Peering through the hole, she was greeted with the cheerful young man in the adjacent aisle.

"Charlotte, darling," said Davies, flashing the supervisor a broad grin. "And how _is_ your evening going? I know mine's just been a ball, what with all these new boxes to index!"

Price's mouth became very small. "Carry on, Davies," she muttered with a nod, walking brusquely out of the area.

As soon as she disappeared out of earshot, the charming smile and false enthusiasm he'd so effortlessly produced in the woman's presence melted into a sharper, more self-satisfied one. "Three years in here, and she's yet to find any match to that," he remarked.

"To what?"

"To me," he replied with a wink. "I've managed to make myself the picture of the eager employee, with just a dash of that especially-irritating brand of blatant disrespect bubbling under the surface. I infuriate her, but the fact that I've not actually done anything wrong makes it all the worse."

"Brilliant," Rose assented, nodding in approval. "What brought on the attack?"

"My first day on the floor, actually," said Davies. "She had the gall to suggest I'd falsified my records to get the promotion, and then she did that little sneer of hers. You know, the one that looks like she's smelling rotten fish or something?" Rose nodded; in all honesty, it was quite the revolting face. "Anyhow, she started in on some speech about competence and decorum and a few more Scrabble words, and I decided to make myself her worst nightmare."

"After your first day?" Rose asked, a little surprised. "A little harsh, don't you think?"

"No second chances," Davies shrugged. "I'm just that sort of man."

The amused smile making its way onto Rose's face faded suddenly into a sadder, more thoughtful one; with a last wistful glance his way, she looked back down at her clipboard and scribbled in the last few numbers on her case, quickly reshelving it and starting on the next one.

"What is it?" Davies leaned further through the space in the shelf. "I've done something wrong, and now our delightful little conversation's come to an abrupt and uncertain end. What have I done, who do I blame, and how might I go about fixing it?" All of this was said very quickly, making it all the harder for Rose to react properly.

She looked back up at him, doing her best to smile, but the wan expression betrayed the sorrow she was trying so hard to conceal. "It's nothing," she assured him. "You just… remind me of someone."

"Someone,' eh?" Davies raised an eyebrow. "And who was this 'someone?' Was he dashing? Funny? Sarcastic? …Sexy?"

Rose let out a small giggle at that. "Definitely have the ego, you do," she remarked.

Looking upwards for a moment in thought, he laughed and nodded. "Yeah," he acknowledged with a nod and a smile.

This time she laughed, before looking back to her work with a plaintive moan. "God, though, what is her problem with me?"

"Nothing," Davies shook his head. "She's just bent because she hasn't got enough clearance to know about the Red Gemini project."

"The what?"

"Red Gemini. Every once in a while there's a note at the bottom of some of the command memos about something called the Red Gemini project, and it's got her mystified. Got me too, actually. I've no idea what it might be, but it's got to be huge, 'cause there's nothing on the database about what it is or who's involved."

"Interesting," said Rose, eyeing him.

"She's got it way worse than me, though," he continued. "Her personal log's plastered with theories. Quite funny, really—"

"Wait," Rose stopped him. "You've read Price's personal logs?"

"Of course," he shrugged. "I'm not a Field Research man; Communications and Technological Reconnaissance was my 'in.'"

"Okay," Rose nodded. "So you're a hacker."

"I prefer to call it 'virtual espionage."

"And you get your kicks from reading command memos and personal logs?"

"You make it sound so petty!" Davies shook his head in amazement. "Really, it's fascinating."

"It's also against all sorts of codes."

"Maybe," he acknowledged, "but no one notices, and you're not going to tell anyone, are you, Tyler?"

Rose stared at him for a moment, as if considering her options. "For now," she said finally, smiling cheekily before scribbling another few numbers on her clipboard. "'Appropriate footwear,'" she muttered, mimicking the high, nasal voice of their superior. "If we get invaded by hostile forces, I'd like to see her escape plan! Try to run from a rampaging extraterrestrial in pumps, and you'll be flat on your face in seconds.

"This is ridiculous!" In an attempt to keep herself from being heard by the older woman again, Rose had taken to ranting in a heated whisper. "I am the best damn field agent out there, and what do they do?" She pounded a fist on the side of the shelf, punctuating her point. "They shut me in a room, writing down numbers all day. It's pointless, it's bloody stupid, and I'm sick of it."

"Oh, come on, Tyler," said Davies in an attempt at a comforting tone. "Honestly, it's not all bad. And hey, you haven't even seen it all yet."

"Yeah, well, the Records part is killing me," Rose remarked, "and I doubt the Research is going to be that much better."

"We could always go read Price's personal logs."

Rose had to bite her fist to keep from laughing. "I'm never going to get any work done, am I?"

"Unlikely," said Davies, pushing the boxes back into place and shutting the space through which he'd been leaning. Once she couldn't see him, it was harder to hear his soft words, but she heard him start to say something:

"You'll see; just wait 'till the Ngloo Room…"


	2. Chapter Two

"So, what's the story on Agent Davies?" Rose asked.

"Who?" Mickey and Jake barely looked up from the game of checkers they'd been concentrating on so intensely for the last forty-five minutes.

"Davies," she repeated. "You know, the one in Records and Research with me? Dark hair, large mouth, my only human contact for eight hours a day… is this ringing any bells?"

"Not particularly," Mickey replied in a distant sort of voice as he moved one of his pieces. "There, king me, and that makes ten quid you owe me."

"Cleanin' me out, Smith," Jake laughed, dropping the piece into place atop its mate. Rose watched with a mixture of fascination and disdain. Mickey and Pete had both tried to explain the system to her, but she'd yet to figure out exactly how people managed to gamble on checkers here on the alternate Earth. "No idea who you're talking about, Rose, sorry. Most people aren't there that long, anyway, so I doubt I met him."

"Maybe not," she sighed, "but he says he's been there for years. Figured one of you might have at least heard of him."

"Wait," Jake said, brow furrowed in thought. "You don't mean Sterling, do you?" Taking a piece in hand, he hopped skillfully across the board. Mickey cursed, pounding a fist on the table and making the entire board jump. "Serves you right, you cheating bastard," Jake grinned.

"Maybe," Rose shrugged as Mickey reacted to the harsh, albeit good-natured accusation. "Is that his name, then? Those of us not in command don't typically toss around first names. 'Matter of personal security,' or whatever."

"Yeah, well," Jake acknowledged, "if it is him, you're right about him. He's been there longer than God. No idea why, mind you. That was the most boring year of my life, hands down."

"Says he enjoys it," she replied, shaking her head in disbelief. "He likes 'being in the middle of the action,' though how that equates to a room full of shelves and boxes, I have no idea." She frowned, thinking about her conversation with the other young man earlier that day. "He said something about the… I don't know, the Clue Room or something? I couldn't quite hear him."

"The Blue Room," Mickey corrected her without looking up from the checkerboard. "It's the testing facility for all the tech and junk found in the field. You never heard the term 'blue-marking?'"

"Sure I did," Rose replied, "but I never figured it meant much when we blue-marked things."

"Yeah, well, that's what it means," he said.

"I don't blame him for liking it," remarked Pete from his perch on the sofa, where he was looking over department reports and watching the checkers game. "Probably the only halfway interesting thing on that whole floor."

"As head of Torchwood, isn't there some rule against you, I don't know, 'disparaging Institute protocol, sowing interdepartmental unrest, and generally contributing to low morale,' or something like that?" Jake asked.

"Might be, yeah," assented the older man, "but that's no fun, now, is it?"

"None at all," agreed Rose.

"Anyone for tea?" A new voice announced the entrance of Jackie Tyler, tray in hand. The four Torchwood agents smiled in greeting, taking steaming mugs from the older woman gratefully. Even, or perhaps especially, in a mansion like the one they sat in, the bite of winter froze them to the bone.

"Wait a minute," Mickey suddenly said, right before burning his lips on the hot beverage. "I think I remember the guy you're talking about, Rose." Blowing on his tea, he glanced back down at the game board. "Whose turn is it?"

"Yours," said Pete.

"Good," the other man grinned, moving his piece. "Better give up now, Simmonds."

"Like hell! I've still got you!"

"What guy is Rose talking about?" Jackie asked as she pulled up a chair, her eyes bright and questioning.

"No one, Mum," Rose assured her. "Just someone at work."

"Really, now?" Jackie's interest was perked. "Who is he?"

"His name's Davies," Jake said, sliding another piece into place. "Sterling Davies."

"Ooo, strong name," Jackie nodded in approval.

"Mum, _honestly_," Rose rolled her eyes. "It's nothing. He works on my floor, and I'm curious about him is all."

"Oh," Jackie cooed in a suggestive tone, but Rose was having none of it.

"Anyway," she said pointedly, "he's good with computers, right?"

"Understatement of the century," said Jake. "He's a technological genius."

"Could be heading up Tech Recon by now, if only he'd accept the promotion," added Pete. "He's turned it down four times now."

"Really?" Rose looked thoughtful. "And that doesn't seem, I don't know, a little suspicious to anyone?"

"Why?" Mickey asked.

"Well, look at it this way," Rose elaborated. "Torchwood's outside the government for a reason, right? It was decided that regardless of the Institute's original motives, no government should have this kind of advantage."

"Right," Jake nodded, "not that the President was pleased with that."

"Yeah, well, that's Harriet Jones for you," Rose said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "What I'm saying is, would it be so far-fetched to think a country, any country, could plant an employee here for their own gain?"

"Interesting theory," Pete nodded. "What do you have to support it?"

"Like Jake said," she continued, "he's a computer genius, and he freely admits to hacking into Institute files for fun, command memos and personal logs, that sort of thing."

"That _is_ fun," Mickey smiled, "but keep going."

"He's been working for at least three years in a department that's utterly pointless unless you're interested in documenting and testing alien technology, the exact information a plant would be looking for. Not to mention, he's fascinated by some top-secret project that keeps popping up in files, something called 'Red Gemini?' You know anything about that?"

All three men stifled a laugh. "What?" Rose looked from one to the other, not understanding what was so funny.

"Well, uh," Jake hemmed and hawed for a moment, glancing uncomfortably at Jackie, who quite honestly seemed to find her tea more interesting than Rose's theory. "Red Gemini's a code Pete came up with to, uh…"

"To what?" Rose leaned forward.

"To warn Jake and I when it was… Jackie's night to cook," Mickey finished sheepishly.

"Oi!" That got Jackie's attention. "That's not very nice!"

"Sorry," Mickey said guiltily, "but I must say, the warning's nice." Not amused in the least, the older Tyler woman thwacked Mickey in the side with the back of her hand. "Hey!" He cried in protest.

"When did all the men in our lives become so insensitive, Rose?" Jackie asked, looking to her daughter for backup.

"Not to mention stupid," Rose laughed. "Why do you even need a memo? Everyone knows Emma's night off is the first Thursday of the month."

"You're all useless," Jackie muttered as she crossed her arms, although her face betrayed that she wasn't nearly as upset as she would have them believe.

"So Red Gemini's nothing?"

"Nothing of grave importance, no," Mickey assured her.

"And don't worry about Sterling," said Jake. "He's an odd egg, sure, but he's a good bloke. I remember him from school when we were kids. Had no idea he'd taken his stepdad's name now, 'till you said something. Thought he was still McDonald.

"What time is it?" He said suddenly, looking at his watch. "It's getting late, I'd better head out."

"No way," said Mickey, "not until we're done here and you pay up."

"Not likely, Smith," the other man smiled. "You already owe me fifteen as it stands here; you really want that to rise?"

"I'm setting up for a comeback!" Mickey exclaimed, much to the amusement of those surrounding him.

"Nope, I'm off," said Jake. "Long way back to Cardiff, whether by car, train, or zeppelin."

"Want me to call up Morris?" Pete asked. "He'll fly you there in no time."

"Thanks," Jake responded as he shook his head, "but I enjoy the drive. Lets me think."

"Fine then," Rose rolled her eyes as she stood to give him a hug. "Be back next weekend, yeah? This great big house is too… big, otherwise."

"I think that's the point," Mickey remarked. "See you later, Jake."

"You too, Mick," Jake waved as he headed for the door.

"Oh, tell Ianto to call me!" Rose called after him. "I never hear from him anymore, and I want to know how things are going."

"I'll be sure to pass it on," he said. "Last I heard, we should find out in the next week or so."

"Really? That seems fast," Rose commented to the others still in the room.

"You think that now," said Jackie, "but you wait until it's born; then time will really be flying. Remember how fast Matty grew up?"

"Yeah," Rose nodded, thinking of her baby brother, now asleep in another wing of the house. "And with how little I see them as it is, I probably won't even meet the baby 'till it's old enough to vote."

Mickey laughed in agreement, before glancing down at his own watch. "I should probably be going too," he said as he picked up his bag.

"Already?" Rose frowned. "At least stay to pick up the checkers."

"Not a chance," he shook his head. "We're finishing the tournament next week. See you tomorrow, yeah?"

"Sure," she smiled, pulling him into a tight hug. "I meant what I said about this house. It's big, and it's cold, and it's scary, and I miss you."

"Aw, come off it," he said as he returned the embrace. "You know you like playing Princess in the Castle."

"Only a little," Rose rolled her eyes sheepishly. "It was still more fun when you and Jake lived here. God knows we've got the room."

"Yeah, but do you really expect him to run Torchwood Three and live here? That's one killer commute."

"I know," she sighed. "Doesn't make it any better. At least _you_ could have stayed."

"Gran needs me, you know that."

"Bring her along!"

"She'd never allow it," he pointed out. "Call it 'taking charity,' and probably smack me for suggesting it."

"Yeah," she agreed, laughing idly at the thought. "Drive safe," she called after him, already so far down the hall that she could barely hear his reply. With a slightly dejected sigh, she slumped back into her overstuffed armchair.

"Well, I'm off upstairs," Pete said, gathering up his papers. "Haven't gotten anything done on these, and I should probably make a dent in them before bed." He headed out of the cozy living room, kissing his wife on the cheek as he went. "'Night, girls."

"Good night, Da— er, Pete," Rose faltered as she spoke. Three years, and that rift still existed between father and daughter; probably, Rose mused, because they weren't _actually_ father and daughter. As willing as she had been to accept him as her father, especially after saving her life, the awkwardness he clearly still felt permeated the relationship and made it more of a friendship than an actual familial bond. She shrugged glumly, glancing up at her mother. "I'll clean up the teacups," she offered.

"That'd be lovely, dear," Jackie smiled gratefully, rising and brushing off her satin dressing gown. "He's trying, Rose. You know that, right?"

"I do," the younger woman nodded, smiling sadly. "I just wish it were easier."

"Me too, dear." Jackie reached over, stroking her daughter's hair once. "I'm off to bed, then. Check on Matthew for me, would you?"

"Of course," Rose said as she picked up the tray of empty mugs. As her mother headed back to her room, the young woman looked around the deserted drawing room, devoid of warmth and merriment so quickly after its occupants had left. As if a switch had been thrown, the mask of idle play melted off Rose's face, leaving a cold, drawn visage in its place, an expression far too old for a girl of twenty-three.

"Alone again," she said aloud, unsure as to whether the breath in her tone was from disappointment or relief.


	3. Chapter Three

Apple grass. The smell was unmistakable, Rose thought as she rested her head in the crook of an arm she knew so well. They were watching clouds float lazily by as they lay in the New Earth field, simply enjoying one another's company. In all honesty, Rose wasn't seeing the clouds at all; instead, all her concentration was on the Doctor, and every place their bodies were touching.

"You do know this isn't real," he said, resting his head on hers. "You're not really here, I'm not really here, not even _me_, not really. Just the creation of your subconscious."

"I know," Rose sighed, snuggling deeper into his side.

"Do you care?" She could feel his eyes glance at her curiously.

"Not really."

"Good," he said with a laugh. "Me neither."

They lay in silence for a while longer, until the Doctor sat up quite suddenly.

"No," he shook his head. "Some part of you cares— quite a lot, in fact— because I can't seem to get my mind off it."

Rose made a face, propping herself up on her elbows. "Fine, so I do care," she acknowledged. "But it's not like there's anything I can do, is there?"

"Well… no, but—"

"But nothing," she shushed him with a finger to his lips. "I've had to give up on seeing you ever again, for real, anyway, but let me have this. Please."

The Doctor smiled around her finger, eyeing her with that look that had made her come undone so many times before. "Except you haven't given up," he observed, "otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Nodding, Rose sighed, a dejected outburst of air that seemed to carry out all the self-control she'd so meticulously constructed over the last three years. "I'd been doing so well," she pointed out. "This is the first time I've dreamed in a while, and I'm not even crying, not yet."

"Are you so sure of that?" He held a hand out, cupping her face, and she could feel the drops of saltwater she hadn't noticed had been teeming down her face. Sobs she could have sworn weren't there a moment before were now choking her as they caught in her throat.

"It's— it's just so _hard!_" She cried, throwing herself into his arms and surrendering to her emotions. The Time Lord held her, whispering words of comfort and cradling her shaking body. "I can't let go," she whimpered. "I just can't. Not ever."

"I know," he murmured soothingly, rubbing her back. "And you know what? I don't think I will, either."

* * *

Rose woke up hours later, alone in her room, still curled into a ball, tears still warm and wet on her face. A good hour or so passed by before she made any effort to move, as if freezing in place and wishing would transport her back to that sweet-smelling field, back into his arms.

She'd been trying so hard to adjust. It had been difficult at first, learning her way around this new world; even now, she'd get the occasional odd glance from colleagues when she made some accidental faux-pas, like when she "forgot" that England hadn't had a monarchy since Napoleon had briefly conquered the British Isles, after which the people formed a democratic state. But for the most part, things had gotten easier.

It hadn't taken long to work her way up the ladder at Torchwood, until she was renowned as a top-notch field agent and diplomat for the Institute. Whispers had gone around about her, Pete Tyler's daughter that had apparently appeared out of thin air, who was suddenly shooting through the ranks, but one look at her performance records usually silenced such talk. "Such talk" still got in her way sometimes, however; apart from Mickey and Jake, she'd only made a few friends in the three years. Rose didn't mind, at least not as much as she would have in years past. She didn't like to let anyone know that anything about her had changed, but she'd noticed herself become more private and quiet. Where there'd been a brightly shining, social girl, there was now a serious, work-driven woman.

She could taste salt on her lips.

Had she been crying all night?

Typical.

"Rose, dear?" A soft knock on her bedroom door accompanied the voice of her mother. 'Is everything all right? You slept through breakfast."

"Fine," she said quickly, wiping her face with her quilt and putting a false smile in her voice. "I'm… I'm fine."


	4. Chapter Four

"I did some research," said Rose offhandedly, hefting an especially heavy case back onto its proper shelf.

"Did you, now?" Her colleague sounded impressed. "What on?"

"You," she replied.

"Me?"

"Unh-huh," she nodded, an unnecessary movement, in retrospect, as they were speaking through a bookshelf and could not thus see each other.

"Should I be flattered or worried?" He seemed to have already chosen the former, judging by the smile in his voice, Rose mused.

"That depends on whether I decide to be envious or suspicious," she answered. "Your personnel file is fascinating, by the way. Not surprised Price thought you'd cheated your way in; no one's ever made full agent without at least a full year of internship under their belt, but you managed it after four months. Exactly how is that possible?"

"An intriguing question indeed," Davies remarked. "How'd you manage to see my personnel file, anyway?"

"Think you're the only person on Earth who can hack?" Rose asked. "I've got connections. Found out your first name, too, _Sterling._"

"Well done," he said approvingly.

"That's beside the point though; back to these speedy promotions of yours. You made it here in nine months. An eternity, compared to your internship, sure, but still, that's unheard of. Hell, I was a Field Agent for a year before I got called up, and _that_ was considered a hurried promotion."

"You're right," he admitted, "but you're forgetting something: Field operates differently than Tech Recon. They can afford to have standards in Field Research because it's a way to separate the real agents from the hundreds of blockheads who apply. After all, how hard is it to lumber in and shoot at little green men?"

"That's not true, and you know it," Rose interjected.

"Sure, _I _do, but they don't," Sterling continued. "So there are regulations and long periods of time in boring departments to see who should _really_ be here. Tech Recon has no such luxury; we're a dying breed, what with all these other government institutions recruiting us as code-breakers and code-makers and what have you, so promotions are quick for those they want in command."

"But you've been offered command four times now," said Rose.

"Five, actually," he corrected. "There was another one this morning."

"Five, then. If they're so desperate, why've you spent so long here?"

"I don't like being manipulated into a position of power," he replied. "If I'm taking it on, it'll be because I want to, not because they need me to. Plus, I like it here."

"Ah, yes," Rose sighed. "The Blue Room."

"You won't be using that dismal tone once you've been in it," he said.

"I get the distinct feeling you're waggling a finger at me," Rose commented.

"And if I am?"

"Then there's more than a passing resemblance to my mother present," she responded primly.

"Really, now?" He finally pushed aside a box so that they could see each other properly. "And is this a better or worse resemblance than to that 'someone' from last week?"

Rose didn't respond, at least not verbally, but her entire body tensed, and she suddenly became very intent on finishing the serial number she was copying.

"Oh dear," Sterling made a pained face. "There I go, bringing him into the conversation again and mucking things up quite completely. You'd think I'd have learned the first time, but clearly I'm thicker than I look."

"It's fine," she stopped him. "Not that big a deal, really."

"He's a bastard."

"What?" Rose looked at Sterling again, a look of confusion on her face.

"Total bastard," Sterling repeated.

"You've never even met him," she protested.

"Don't need to," he replied. "All I know is he did something to make you feel bad when you needn't have, and that makes him a bastard."

"It wasn't his fault," she said softly, remembering a cold day on a beach years before. "Not really, anyway. It was just… the situation. We couldn't be together anymore, as much as either of us may have fought it."

"I see," Sterling looked thoughtful. "Still a bastard, though."

"Why now?"

"Because he gave up," the young man stated quite plainly. "If he was worth half of what you seem to think he was, he'd never stop fighting, never stop trying to find a way to fix things." Sterling looked up at her through his hair with soft, truthful eyes, and an expression that somehow made him look both very young and very old. "It wouldn't matter how hopeless things might actually be, because he'd see that you're a girl worth that effort, even if it never panned out, just because you're _you_."

Rose stared at him for a minute, unsure if she were going to smile or cry. "Why?" She finally managed to choke out.

Instantly, that warm, tender gaze was gone, replaced by the endearingly cocky grin he always wore. "No 'why' to the truth, Tyler," he said. "And besides, if _I_ remind you of him, he's got to be a fool." Rose smiled distantly, consciously neither affirming nor denying the statement.

"Hey," he said after a moment, peering back through the opening. "Want to give it a go tonight?"

"Give what a go?"

"The Blue Room. You might not think it's much now, but believe me, there are things in there you won't find anywhere else in the universe."

"Anywhere, you say?" She looked back up at him with a tentative smile.

"Anywhere," he nodded. The twinkle in his eye and quirk in his eyebrow were both entrancing and unnerving; she stared at him a while before looking back down with a gentle shake of the head.

"Sorry," she said. "I… can't."

"Suit yourself," he shrugged nonchalantly. "I'll leave you alone, then. But first, what's _your_ name?"

"That's not important," she said, attempting to evade his gaze.

"Oh, come on," he wheedled. "You can't be called 'Agent Tyler' all the time, and hell, you know mine." He made a slight whine in the back of his throat. "Out with it; consider the shared knowledge a seal on our newfound friendship." She stared at him a moment, considering her options, before responding in a smiling, though hesitant voice:

"It's Rose. My name's Rose."

"Nice to meet you, Rose," Sterling said with a smile.


	5. Chapter Five

It had been over a year since the last time Rose had dreamed of him, and yet here she was for the second time in under a month, sweating and shaking with fear and grief she thought she'd buried long ago. Throwing off the suddenly stifling covers of her bed, she stumbled into the bathroom, not bothering to switch on the light as she bent over the sink, splashing her face with cool water as she recounted the dream to herself.

There had been snow, that she remembered immediately, but it certainly hadn't felt like dream snow. She'd always thought dream-snow would be sugary and soft, but this snow had been bitterly cold, stinging as stray flakes caught in the wind buffeted her face. She'd been alone, wandering the deserted streets of some anonymous town like the beggar-woman in so many fairy tales. Nothing she remembered seemed to indicate it, but she recalled being very old, in mind if not in body. She cried out for help, for comfort or a moment's rest, but no one and nothing was there to respond.

That was when she saw it, looming on the street corner, all bright blue paint and warm orange light through the windows. That daft police call box shone like a beacon of everything loving and bright in the universe, raising her spirits as she reached it, tapping the door in greeting. The tap quickly became a full-fledged knock, and then frantic pounding as no one came to answer the door. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the door swung open, and there he stood, exactly as she remembered him. In his brown suit and trainers, he'd looked completely impervious to the cold that so shook her, a fact that would have been exasperating if she weren't so happy to see him.

She wished he could have said the same, but the eyes that bore into her as she stood outside the TARDIS were cold and unfeeling, as if she were invisible or— worse, she thought— he had no idea who she was. Another figure, buxom and clearly feminine, appeared at his side, to her disgust. She couldn't see the girl clearly, but her mere presence unleashed a volley of emotions she'd never wanted to feel again. She woke to find herself crying and shouting to him, begging him to recognize her and let her in.

She blinked the droplets out of her eyes, finally finding the courage to look at herself in the mirror, if only in the dark. The face she saw looking back was the one she saw every day, neither the old and haggard woman she'd been in the dream, nor the young, carefree one she'd seen every morning in the TARDIS. Before she'd died, that is. That was always how she looked back on the move from her world to this one: a death.

"Rose?" A tiny voice queried the darkness. She spun around to see the silhouette of a small boy in the doorway to the bathroom, hovering around the edge as if he weren't sure he was allowed in.

"Yes, Matty?" She did her best to smile at him as she knelt to his eye level.

"Heard you crying," he said in a tone surprisingly matter-of-fact for how sleepy he was. "Are you okay?"

"Just fine, luv," she assured him, a bit embarrassed at having awakened her three-year-old brother with her nightmare. "Just a bad dream."

"Were there monsters?" Matty asked.

"No monsters," she said, shaking her head. "Just… a ghost."

"You could borrow Cubby." He held out his stuffed bear for her to take. She tried to tell him she would be fine, but he resolutely placed the toy in her arms.

"Fine, then," she said. "Thank you very much. Now, let's get you back to bed."

"Um…" the little boy hesitated, looking fearfully down the hallway toward his own room.

"D'you want to come to bed with Cubby and me?" She asked with a smile. As brave as her little brother might wish to be, without his bear he feared the same monsters from which he was so earnestly trying to protect Rose. Matty nodded enthusiastically at her invitation, taking her hand and leading the way to her room.

Tucking him into bed next to her, Rose took a moment to look around the room that had been hers for the last three years. As much as she'd tried to tell herself that it was hers now, and she should make it her own, she'd hardly touched anything. Anyone happening upon it might think it to be a guest room of some sort, not the bedroom of the Tylers' eldest child. Her room back on the Powell Estate had been various shades of brilliant pink, and even her room on the TARDIS had been plastered with pictures and posters and souvenirs of their travels; here, the only decorations were a somewhat bland landscape painting hanging on one wall, and an ornamental vase sitting in the corner. Rose had originally declined the rather large, unwieldy urn, but one of the more ornery members of staff kept moving it back, until she'd finally given up the fight.

Only one item actually belonged to her, one she'd hidden in the drawer of her bedside table after one too many housekeepers mistakenly attempted to throw it away. Rolling over first to make sure Matty was asleep, she flicked the lamp on and pulled it out.

It was a photo she'd taken out of a newspaper from 2012, chronicling the strange occurrences at the Olympics, and how the people's spirits were hardly dampened regardless. From the looks of it, neither she nor the Doctor knew their photo was being taken as they strolled down an idyllic little street. Whoever had done it had a measurable amount of skill, thought Rose; for all his mad, rude, and sometimes downright egotistical ways, the Doctor despised having his picture taken, and went to great lengths to avoid it. Here, however, his attention was completely overtaken by the fairy cake he was so enthusiastically eating. It had been sheer coincidence that this article had been in her pocket that day at Canary Wharf, only to show her mother. Now, however, it was the only fragment of her old life she had left.

Of all the things it could have been, though, it was definitely fitting; both she and the Doctor looked completely happy in that moment, free of worry or care or knowledge of the grim future that lay before them. It wasn't as if there were any way for her to forget her time with him, but if there were any one way she'd want to remember it, it would be exactly like this.

* * *

"Okay, now, look at this."

"Are you sure we can be in here?" Rose asked. "The number of locks and combinations seems to suggest otherwise." The security measures they'd had to traverse suggested that something ominous and fascinating was going on in this room, but really, it didn't look much different than the storage facility they spent most of their time organizing, apart from the coat of sky blue paint that covered the cement walls and floor. Mickey had explained that the paint gave the Blue Room its name, and was actually mixed with a metallic compound that dampened electrical fields and prevented unwanted surveillance of the testing grounds.

"Totally within protocol for any staff member to enter," Sterling replied. "Command doesn't really care who does the testing, so long as they 'properly document the artifact's function once it has been evaluated for its usefulness to the Institute.' In triplicate, of course."

"'Salways triplicate, isn't it?"

"Certainly. Then, once the forms are processed, the 'artifact' gets stashed in one of those nifty metal boxes we slave away indexing every day, never to see sunlight again, or sent to Reverse Engineering to be mass-produced. The locks are really more there to deter lackeys who just want to play with the toys."

"But… isn't that why _we're_ here?" Rose asked.

"Of course," said Sterling, flashing his crooked grin yet again. "Now, take a look at this little beauty, it's my favorite."

"What does it do?" Rose regarded the little metallic cylinder he'd handed her with a little bit of skepticism. It didn't look like much more than a glorified laser pointer, really, with a few more buttons laid into its side.

"What _doesn't_ it do?' is a better question," he preened, clearly very proud of whatever it was. "We recovered this from an old Cybus facility, a prototype they'd planned to sell the military, you know, _before._" He didn't elaborate, nor did he need to. "It's a portable retinal scan that links up to the main database, so anyone who's ever been in a government building will come up on the little screen hidden… there." He stroked the side once, revealing a small display.

"Not bad," she conceded, examining it further.

"Also, we've begun modifying it to rearrange photons and allow them to interact with actual matter, simulating solid objects. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but it could be substituted for all sorts of tools, keys, and spanners, and—"

"— screwdrivers?" Rose tried not to laugh, but this was starting to sound awfully familiar.

"Exactly!" Sterling exclaimed. "What's so funny? This is like nothing you've ever seen before!"

"Sure," she nodded, still smiling a little too widely. "I can honestly say I've never seen a photonic screwdriver."

"Come on, now, it's more than just a screwdriver," he protested. "It'll interface with any simple computer setup, so it'll decode electronic passwords and take on updates automatically. And then, I can't really back this up, 'cause there's not much research in the area yet, but I think if we make the right modifications, we'll be able to use it medically, too. We can already reattach inanimate objects with it, wires and the like, but pretty soon I think we'll be able to regenerate skin cells, heal mild wounds and such in the field. Think about it, this could really revolutionize field work."

Rose looked at the item in her hand with a newfound respect, and a little nostalgia. "I see what you mean," she nodded, holding it out for him to take back.

"Keep it," he shook his head, closing her hands around it. "There are hundreds of them lying around here. Even has a key ring on it. Consider it my gift to you."

Rose couldn't help but smile. "Thanks," she said, pocketing it. "What else is there around here?"

"Told you it'd beat the pants off all those charts," Sterling grinned proudly.

"That you did," she acknowledged. "So show me around; what can we test out? I want to see something big."

"In that case," he looked over one shoulder, pointing further into the room, "all the best stuff's in the back." He started off down the aisle of shelves, but she stopped and pointed at what could only be described as a rather ferocious-looking metal umbrella.

"What does this do?" She asked.

"Oh," Sterling looked her way, eyeing her find with interest, "_that's_ a whole lot of fun." Taking it in hand, he demonstrated. "All you do is open it, switch on the power source, and…" The room was suddenly plunged into darkness. "Ah. Overloaded. It does that sometimes; shouldn't be long before the backup kicks in."

Rose felt suddenly quite claustrophobic in the all-consuming darkness of the room. "Where are you?" She asked, one hand blindly groping for some sign of him.

"Here," he said, his voice coming from much closer to her than she remembered him being. Somehow their hands found each other, fingers interlacing unconsciously. How had he managed to get so close to her without tripping over something? Rose could smell him now, a heady, pleasant combination of lime and newspaper and soap. Or maybe being without sight just made her more conscious of her senses, she rationalized.

Before anything else could be said, however, the lights came back on. He had moved after all; Rose found herself face to face with the young man, in far closer proximity than what would normally make her comfortable. Their eyes met briefly, with all the same shy intensity of schoolchildren, an almost frightening spark. Then, as quickly as it had happened, it was over; their hands sprang apart, and Rose suddenly busied herself with the other objects on the shelf.

"Rose Tyler," said Sterling, almost to himself, as he observed her. "When are you going to let me take you to dinner?"

Rose froze in place, head whipping around to stare at him in total shock.

"Fine, not dinner," Sterling nodded, furrowing his brow; all previous bravado had evaporated, replaced by a bashful, slightly insecure, overgrown boy. "Drinks, then? A post-work drink some night? I know a place down the street…"

"I, er… what?" Rose's mind was still processing the question.

"O-kay," he nodded again, looking away. "That'll be a 'no,' then. No matter. Onward, then, to the back. There's a really big hunk of metal up ahead you'll be wanting to avoid, as we're not entirely sure whether it's an execution device or an industrial hair dryer…"


	6. Chapter Six

"Think I might ask that Rooney's girl out," Mickey said nonchalantly as he slumped into the sofa. After losing the checkers tournament (and thus, most of the contents of his wallet) quite spectacularly, he'd chosen to drown his sorrows in beer and bad television. "She's been flirting with me, you know."

"Giving you extra peanuts is hardly flirting," Jake pointed out, still aglow from his earlier triumph.

"It's more than the peanuts," protested Mickey through a mouthful of cheap lager. "It's the intention behind them."

"You do know how foolish you sound, right?"

Mickey made a face at the other young man. "Doesn't matter, I'm still doing it."

Rose watched their exchange with a mixture of amusement and envy. She had her friendship with the boys, but in the time between Mickey's decision to stay in Jake's world and Rose's imprisonment in it, the two of them had forged a close bond that was uniquely theirs, and Rose couldn't help but feel a little distanced at times. It was nothing she held against them; after all, it was in part her own choice, having never totally adjusted to her new circumstances.

"What's a Rooney's girl?" She asked.

"She's the new waitress at a bar down the street from the Institute," Jake explained, "whom our Mickey would seem to have taken a liking to."

"Oh?" Rose looked over at her ex-boyfriend with a lascivious waggle of her eyebrows. "Her and her intentional peanuts?"

"Funny," Mickey muttered sarcastically, changing the channel on the television.

"I've never been there," Rose remarked. "Is she pretty?"

"Not bad," Jake acknowledged. "Wait, how is it that I live in Cardiff, am only here on the weekend, and I know enough to know what the new girl looks like, but you work five days a week barely a block away, but you've never set foot inside?"

"You go to bars too much," she replied.

"You're just on a roll tonight, aren't you?" Rose smiled sweetly as he sneered good-naturedly in her direction. "And you're wrong, by the way. Actually, I can't figure out how you haven't been there. The whole staff goes, it's effectively _the_ post-work drinking venue of Torchwood."

"They should give us a discount," Mickey interjected.

"Maybe your waitress will give you one," said Rose, prompting him to roll his eyes and return his attention to the television. "I don't know, I'm just not that social a person," she continued.

"That's not true," Jake dismissed her comment with a shake of his head. "You were perfectly willing to make friends when you were at Torchwood Three. What changed?"

"You're forgetting, I got promoted. The only people I see now are Sterling and that spider woman, Price, and if you think I'm going to get all chummy with her, you're mad."

"I thought you were making friends with Sterling," Jake frowned.

"He's nice enough, yeah," she nodded, "and we were getting on, but things got a little strained after he asked for a date, so—"

"He what?" Mickey's attention was finally fully diverted from the television. "When did this happen?"

"A couple of days ago," she shrugged. "He just sort of threw it at me, and I didn't know what to do. I mean, sure, he's a nice enough guy, but he's just not… I don't know."

"Not the Doctor," finished Mickey, his voice a good few degrees cooler than it had been only moments before.

"What? No!" Rose protested. "That's not what I was saying at all!"

"Maybe not, but it's what you really mean," he countered, his demeanor now clearly hardened. "It doesn't matter that he's a universe away, and probably already has another girl to woo and then drop; you'll always hang onto him."

She struggled for a response, but none came.

"You know I'm right," Mickey said. "No one measures up in your eyes anymore."

"Where is this coming from?" Rose asked once she found words, incredulous at his reaction. "I turn one guy you barely know down for a date, and suddenly it's okay to jump on me for being hesitant?"

"Not for being hesitant," he said. "For being unrealistic. For choosing to be alone for the memory of a man who will eventually forget you anyway. Remember Sarah Jane?" He softened for a moment, looking at her with a mixture of disdain and regret. "I'm sick and tired of watching you do this to yourself. You deserve happiness, Rose, you do, and if you didn't want it to be with me, at least let it be someone else." As she stared at him, still stunned by this unexpected outburst, his eyes froze over again. "Hell, at least I got the chance to meet the man who replaced me; you're gonna make this bloke think it's his own fault he's not good enough."

"You don't understand," Rose said softly. "I loved him. It's a bit difficult to just let that go."

"_I_ don't understand?" Mickey scoffed. "I don't understand loving someone unattainable? That's fantastic."

"That's not fair," she said, her voice raising slightly.

"Yeah, well, none of us should really put much stock in fairness anymore, should we? After all, look at you: where did fair leave you? Stuck here, never knowing if he loved you back."

Rose was silent, a cold, seething quiet that filled the room. "You don't know anything," she whispered, standing to leave. She'd reached the doorway, eyes squeezed tight to keep herself from either crying or tearing something to shreds, when the sound of Mickey's voice made her pause.

"I hope he did, Rose, for your sake. But you can't use that as an excuse, because love you or not, he's gone, and you've got to find a way to accept that."

She listened to his words, but didn't turn around, instead turning down the corridor to her room. In her pocket, her hand found the little photonic device Sterling had given to her. In the events that had followed, she'd nearly forgotten it was there. Reaching her door, she pulled it out, regarding it in her palm. It wasn't so hard to see a resemblance to the sonic screwdriver, albeit a bit more compact. Hesitantly, she brushed the side to reveal the screen, and raised it to her eye. A bright flash of light briefly blinded her when she had fiddled with the buttons enough to activate it, but sure enough, the screen read "Rose Tyler, Torchwood Agent." Glancing around again, she pointed it at her doorknob and pressed a few more buttons.

And again, the door unlocked with an audible _click_. It didn't have the distinct sound of the sonic screwdriver, she noted with a gentle sigh, not that she'd expected it to. She knew Mickey was right: love him as she might, it was foolish to cling to the hope of a rescue that wasn't coming. She had a life here now, whether or not she'd been paying it much heed. Like the screwdriver, it wasn't the same, but it wasn't all that bad either. She could learn to make do. She had to.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Sorry, a bit longer between updates this time, mostly because I realized that I was catching up to myself a bit quicker than I'd originally intended. Just proof that I need to be writing this as fast as I've been thinking of it, instead of just jotting bits down whenever I feel like it.

Also, a couple more perfunctory things I forgot to do: as a starving college student, I can barely afford food, much less copyrights; these lovely characters aren't mine.  
And finally, anyone who reads my work regularly can tell you I'm endlessly insecure, so reviews are much appreciated! Tell me what you like, what I'm doing wrong, what you had for breakfast today, or whatever's on your mind. Honestly, I don't think there's a thing you could say to bore me.


	7. Chapter Seven

When they talk about not knowing what you've got until it's gone, Rose thought, they forget to mention how hideously awkward it is when you try to get it back. Since her rejection, Sterling hadn't acted especially cold or insulted, but he hadn't been the same warm presence in the department either, and Rose noticed how much less she seemed to hear him in the next aisle anymore. On the day in question, it took a good amount of effort to "coincidentally" end up near him, and once she reached him, she found herself at a loss for words for a while.

"You know," she finally said, "after spending the whole day in here, it's awfully boring going home and doing nothing."

"…That it is," he responded; Rose could hear the slightly confused hesitation in his voice.

"So I was thinking I might go out tonight instead," she continued, pushing crates out of the way to see his face. "I hear Rooney's down the street isn't half bad."

"Definitely a good choice," he nodded.

"Think you'd be interested in going with me?" Rose asked with a bite of her lip. "As an apology for how supremely stupid I was last week."

"As in a date?" Sterling didn't look quite convinced, but it seemed that his interest was piqued.

"Well, yeah," she nodded, feeling suddenly very uncomfortable. How long had it been since she'd done this? Even with Mickey, he'd been the one to make the first move, not her. "Nothing major, just drinks. Maybe we could grab some chips or something afterwards, you know, but—"

"No, it sounds fine," he said, smiling bashfully. "Great, I'm in."

"Really?" Rose blushed; she hadn't wanted to admit it, but the idea of him rejecting her offer had terrified her. "Tonight? You haven't got any other plans or anything?"

"Rose, I work in _here_," Sterling pointed out. "Torchwood has a way of taking over one's life, so unless Price and I decide to embark on a torrid affair, I'm pretty safely free after work.

"I'm impressed," he remarked. "I didn't even know you were there until you spoke."

"You think that was an accident?" Rose laughed, taking off one black heel to show him. "I had to do some champion creeping, and in _these_, of all things! That should be an Olympic sport, 'cause I deserve a medal."

"A what?" Sterling looked confused. _Damn,_ Rose thought. _No Olympic Games here._

"Never mind," she said quickly.

"So Price's little snarks finally got to you?" He asked, gesturing to the shoe.

"Yup," she lied, putting the pump back on. She refused to divulge that she'd gone through great pains to look polished today; that way, she'd look good for their date, and if he'd said no, it was easier to take rejection when one looked immaculate. "Figured it'd be one less reason to see her if 'proper work attire' weren't an issue anymore."

"Even so, there's always just plain avoiding her," he said. "No reason to permanently remove the cute little pink trainers from the rotation when this place has enough hiding places to last a week."

"Longer, if you count the Blue Room," she pointed out. "I could find enough time to wear flip-flops."

"Sounds like a masterful plan," Sterling nodded. "Hey, I'm almost done here. Want to put in some time in there before we head out?"

"Sure," Rose agreed with a nod. "But don't go dashing ahead of me the way you did last time. Sneaking was hard enough in these; running might kill me."

"Noted," he responded sheepishly. "Have you been back since last time?"

"No," she said. "You didn't show me how to get in, remember? Those codes and passwords may be for show, but I still can't get in without them."

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that," he winced. "Got a little sidetracked, what with the rejection and all."

"Oi, that's a little unfair," she retorted, "as you _did_ catch me off guard, and I _did _apologize, and I _did _ask you for a date just minutes ago."

"Now you sound like me," Sterling remarked.

"Do I?"

"Spot on," he assured her as he joined her in the aisle, offering his elbow. Laughing at the somewhat antique gesture, she still took it, and they proceeded to the entrance arm-in-arm.

"I never thanked you for the screwdriver, by the way," Rose offered.

"You're never gonna stop calling it that, are you?" Sterling sighed in resignation.

"Not likely, no."

"I'll never understand it; it's not especially 'screwdriver-ish.' Not enough to even be 'screwdriver-esque.' What's the story?"

"Oh, nothing," she said.

* * *

"Pick an item, any item, and I'll tell you what it does and how to work it."

"Really?" Rose trailed her fingers along the shelf, eyeing each gadget carefully. "Okay, that one." She pointed to what appeared to be a palm-sized lump of metal, inlaid with a few tiny stones that seemed to faintly glow on the shelf.

"Took us months to figure out what that one did," Sterling remarked. "If you place it on the chest of the recently deceased, it'll let off a gentle pulse of energy that restarts the heart and realigns the synapses to promote calm and healing. Not too flashy or anything, but usually it'll buy enough time for hospitalization and the like."

"Why does it need to realign the synapses?" She asked.

"Because, Tyler, coming alive after you just died can be a little panic-inducing, shockingly enough," he said, giving her a look.

"Okay," she nodded, blushing. "It certainly sounds like something that could be used elsewhere; why's it still in here?"

"Well, Reverse Engineering couldn't make heads or tails of it, so it got sent back until we could learn more about it." He ran his thumb over the top of the artifact, making the little glowing stones dim for a moment. "As far as we can tell, it wasn't built, it was _grown_. Genius, but impossible to manufacture, so it sits on the shelf."

"Oh, well _that's_ disappointing," Rose said with a shrug.

"I know," he agreed. "Keep an eye out, though. Most of the good stuff's in the back, but a few fun things make their way out into the rest of it."

"Then why don't we head straight to the back?" She suggested.

"Not one for preamble," Sterling noted with a grin. "I like that." Rose did her best not to blush, turning to head down the aisle, when some small movement one of them made managed to jostle the shelf next to them enough to dislodge an already precariously-balanced artifact, causing it to fall into their path. It probably would have hit Rose on its way down, had Sterling not placed his hands on either of her hips at that moment and gently pulled her backward. Rose tensed at such intimate, though completely harmless, a gesture; turning to him, she bit her lip and shyly murmured a thank you, before kneeling down to examine the item that had fallen. It was fairly sizable compared to the other little gadgets on the shelves around it, but really wasn't much wider than the span of her shoulders. Shaped like a rounded trapezoid, it was nearly completely smooth, except for a small, elongated switch to one side of a darkened screen in the center.

"Oh no, is it damaged?"

"Probably so," he nodded, "not that that makes any difference. It doesn't do anything, at least not yet. As far as anyone can tell, it's either specifically calibrated so that only a select user can operate it, or it's broken. Either way, no use to us if we can't work it."

Rose regarded it with a shrug, picking it up to place it back on the shelf. Suddenly, the artifact came to life; the formerly dark center screen was now crawling with little symbols and readings, and the translucent material of the outer shell had lit up in a bright green tint, revealing some of the intricate wiring inside. Where before there had been wide expanses of empty space along the top, small shapes appeared in different coloured light, suggesting buttons or status lights.

"Apparently it does do something," she remarked. Sterling, however, was at a loss for words, simply staring at her with a mixture of scientist's calculation and child's awe. Desperate to fill the silence, Rose kept talking. "Has it ever done this before? I don't want to feel all special if this is average, you know."

"Er… no," he finally said. "No, this is definitely the most I've ever heard happen. What's it doing? Describe everything you can." He quickly snatched a clipboard off the shelf, poised and ready to take notes.

"Well," she started, unsure of what to say, really. "It's lighter now that I'm fully standing, almost like it's just barely hovering in my hands— wait, does that make any sense?"

"No, but these things rarely do. Keep going."

"Okay. Er, handgrips suggest a humanoid origin, or at least human-ish." She leaned in to examine the characters on the screen. "Readout on the screen isn't English, but looks really familiar."

"Really?" Sterling asked, taking a look himself. "I've never seen anything like it before. Maybe it was on another artifact, something you found in the field? That would help establish an origin."

"No, that's not it." Rose tried to think, but drew a complete blank until one figure caught her eye. "Wait! That's what it is, it's Greek. The writing is in Greek."

"In what?" He looked confused. "Is that another race we've run across?"

_Again with this_, Rose inwardly groaned. "Er, sort of?" She stammered. "It's a long story, but it definitely shouldn't be _here,_ is the thing."

"O-kay," he shrugged, clearly curious, but not enough to press the issue. "Try flicking the switch, see what it does." She nodded, following the suggestion with a twitch of her thumb.

"Nothing," she replied.

"Damn! Thought we might have had something there," he sighed. "I had a hypothesis a while ago, thought it might be some alien version of a personal computer console, but if it's in a language we can't read, and the only visible control doesn't do anything, we're stuck."

"True," Rose said idly, deep in thought. The Greek civilization had never prospered in this world, so why would this console suddenly be reading in Greek? There was the possibility that some alien race in this universe happened to write in Greek, but that was just too much of a coincidence for her liking. "Where was this found again?"

"Outside of Cardiff, about six months ago," Sterling read off the clipboard. "I remember that, it was right after the earthquake."

"Earthquake?" Rose asked. "That's bizarre, I didn't hear about it. Did the Rift open?"

"Oh, no, it wasn't nearly that serious. Might have shaken a few artifacts loose from it, but no full-on, world-ending opening or anything like that. Hell, we only heard about it here because it meant we could test our seismic battery." Rose had to stare at him questioningly for a moment before he realized he had to elaborate. "It's a fairly strong power source that charges during seismic activity. It's effective, but a little unpredictable at times. Prone to random power surges."

Rose nodded once before returning her attention to the console in her hands. Minor or not, earthquakes weren't exactly typical of Cardiff, were they? She remembered the last one she'd heard of, back before the Doctor had regenerated, when Jack still traveled with them.

If being with the Doctor at all felt like a long time ago, being with the Doctor _and_ Jack seemed positively prehistoric. Thinking of them was saddening, to be sure, especially after how the three had parted; sure, they hadn't been thinking of it at the time, what with Bad Wolf and the Doctor's regeneration and all that, but once things had calmed down, Rose had been devastated to think that such a dear friend as Captain Jack Harkness had been left on Satellite Five, his fate uncertain. She didn't even know if he'd survived.

The time in Cardiff, however, was mostly a happy memory, one when their little TARDIS family was whole and glad to be so. What she wouldn't give to sit in a restaurant with them again, laughing over some recent exploit through time and space...

She heard Sterling say something, ask her if everything was okay, but as lost in thought as she was, she couldn't quite bring herself to answer for a second longer or so, just savoring the memory for a moment more.

It was then that, suddenly, everything changed.


	8. Chapter Eight

Everything seemed to happen at once. Rose was suddenly aware of everything around her being very bright and loud, a deafening groan in her ears, and the feeling of being both pushed and pulled from all directions. It wasn't painful, just extremely _unusual_-feeling, and regardless, it was over in an instant.

_When did I close my eyes?_ She wondered. The room had gotten colder, she noticed, and the buzzes and clicks of artifacts around her were louder, and had just a bit more of an echo than before.

"What ha—" Rose began, but stopped as soon as she opened her eyes. "Oh my God. Oh my _God._" It was gone. All of it: Sterling and his clipboard, the endless aisles of alien technology, the whole Blue Room was gone. Or rather, she was gone, it appeared, because wherever she'd ended up, it was certainly not anywhere near Records and Research.

Suddenly, the signature _clicks_ of several guns being cocked could be heard, and Rose found herself surrounded by several unfamiliar faces, all of whom were facing her with the same combination of curiosity and steeled defenses in their faces that she'd commonly donned during her time out in the field. Wherever she'd ended up, they certainly didn't want her there.

"Er, hello," she said, doing her best to smile. She'd seen bravado get people out of stickier situations than this, so she figured it was worth a try. "I'm not quite sure what's just happened, but I can assure you—"

"Stop talking," an assertive voice said. Rose looked up to see another figure at the top of a set of stairs. He too was holding a gun, but when she saw his face, all thought of the firearms trained on her melted away.

"Jack?" Rose couldn't stop a giddy grin from breaking across her face. "Oh my God, Jack, you're _alive!_ This is—"

"Freeze." The reformed con man said icily as he walked down the stairs, not taking his eye or his gun off her for a second. "Move a muscle, and I shoot."

Confused, and more than a little bit frightened, Rose did as she was told. "J-Jack?" She tried again, much more cautiously than before. For all she knew, this wasn't her Captain Jack Harkness, or it could have been before they met, or any of numerous other possibilities she wasn't all that interesting in considering.

"Toshiko," the Captain spoke up, pointing a bookish Asian woman to a computer workstation nearby, "scan the building. Figure out how she—_it_ got in here without tripping any security alerts. Owen, search the database. Flag anything involving shapeshifting, cloning, raising the dead, all that." The two nodded and left their formation around Rose to do their jobs, leaving a single dark-haired woman in front of her. "Gwen, cover me. I'm going to move closer, examine it."

"Oi!" Rose couldn't help exclaiming indignantly. "Isn't 'it' is a little harsh? I _am_ standing right here!"

"Did I say you could talk?" That icy voice was back. Rose closed her mouth, gazing at him with a mixture of fear and regret.

Slowly, cautiously, Captain Jack moved forward, gun still trained on the young blonde. "Organism has the appearance of a human female, early- to mid-twenties, blonde hair, brown eyes, petite build—"

"She's cute," the man— Owen —interjected. "Be sure to get that down." Rose couldn't resist throwing Jack an "is-he-serious?" look, but he ignored it, continuing to eye her with disdain.

"Why are you here?" He asked in a low, seething voice. "What's your purpose?"

"Purpose?" She asked. "What do you mean?"

"Why are you here?" He said again, this time in a slower, more condescending tone. "To conquer, to enslave, to con, to try to fulfill some prophecy, which is it? We've heard it all before. You clearly have _some_ reason to be here other than simple observation, otherwise you wouldn't have revealed yourself and you sure as hell wouldn't look like _her."_

"Jack, it's me!" Rose exclaimed in desperation. "It's Rose!"

"No, it's not," he asserted calmly.

"Why is it so hard to believe that I'm me?"

"Well, first of all," he said with a bitter laugh, "you've got the clothes all wrong. If you're going to take someone's shape, at least _try_ to dress like they do. There's no way Rose Tyler would ever dress like that."

"What, really? You think so?" Rose looked down at herself, suddenly extremely self-conscious. She'd thought her slim, dark jeans, white button-down shirt, and black blazer were the right balance between professional and fashionable (even if she were about to topple off the heels). "I thought I looked nice."

"Don't make me laugh," Jack said. "Rose Tyler wouldn't be caught dead looking that dismal. For God's sake, you're dressed like Gwen!"

"Hey, is that supposed to be a bad thing?" The dark-haired woman next to him said in a thick Welsh accent, taking her eye off Rose to look at Jack.

"If we're all done sniping at each other," the one called Owen called out, "thought you might like to know that she checks out."

"What?" Jack looked incredulous.

"Scanned her, and it's all here," Owen pointed at his console as if to dare the Captain to tell him he'd made a mistake. "No sign of cell rearrangement or DNA conversion, no anomalous energy readings, no sign of bodily decay that would suggest having died. As far as I can tell, she's exactly who she's supposed to be… which is _who_, might I ask?"

"Oh," Rose was suddenly a bit bashful. "I'm, er, Rose. Rose Tyler."

A cough came from the doorway behind her, as a man choked on an errant mouthful of coffee on his way into the spacious room. "You're not _really_, are you?"

"No, she isn't," Jack said firmly. Despite Owen's reassurance, his gun hadn't moved. Rose chanced moving, turning to look at the new person in the room; to her surprise, she knew this one, too.

"Ianto!" She cried out, glad to see a familiar face (or rather, a familiar face that wasn't threatening her with a gun), but the Welshman simply looked at her quizzically.

"I'm sorry," he said hesitantly, "have we met?"

"No," asserted the Captain loudly.

Sighing, Rose nodded, realizing her mistake. "Not here, anyway," she said apologetically. "But… somewhere else, we're really close, trust me."

Ianto looked intrigued, if a bit skeptical. "Are we?"

"Yeah!" Rose smiled at the Torchwood agent, sweetly and genuinely. "Gosh, I mean, I was a bridesmaid at your wedding."

The warm, courteous exterior Ianto normally wore promptly disappeared, indefinable thoughts and emotions flashing across his face now. "My wedding?"

"Yeah," she nodded. The room felt suddenly very uncomfortable, and Rose wasn't sure why. "Why, what does that mean?"

Ianto looked at her, his eyes cool and entirely too sad. "That's impossible," he stated, before busying himself with organizing the papers scattered across a table behind him.

"Exactly," said Jack.

"Except for the part where it clearly _isn't,_" Owen said in a slightly annoyed tone of voice. "But then again, what do I know? I'm just the one with the bloody medical expertise here."

"Rose Tyler is dead," Ianto said grimly. "She was at Canary Wharf, and she died. I filed the casualty reports myself. What does your medical expertise tell you about _that_, Owen?"

"But he's right," said Rose. "I'm not dead. I know the records say differently, but I'm alive, I promise."

"Listen, teaboy," Owen sighed with a distinctly venomous tone, apparently ignoring Rose's input. "I don't really care what your reports said, because apart from a little—" he paused, looking at his computer monitor, "— _void stuff_, they call it, she's completely herself."

"Void stuff?" Jack said, eyes widening with surprise. "Are you sure?"

"Real specific, I know," the young man shrugged. "But that's what it's called, apparently."

Meeting her eyes with a significant look, Jack lowered his gun, but kept it safely in hand beside him. "How did you get here?" He asked Rose, entirely too calm for her liking.

"I, er," Rose faltered. How _had_ she gotten there? In the resulting excitement, she'd nearly forgotten. "I was in Torchwood One," she said. "The testing facility, in Records and Research. We'd found this artifact, you know, but no one knew how to use it. Then I held it and it turned on, I'm not really sure how, but then I was here, and you all had guns." She held up the console still in her hands, as if to prove her innocence. "This is actually a bit heavy, now; think I could put it down, or am I still gonna get shot if I move?"

Everyone was quiet for a moment; Owen and the woman Jack had called Toshiko both became very interested in whatever was at their respective workstations, while Ianto was doing his best to stare at Rose without looking like he was doing so. Jack had apparently retreated into his own thoughts, almost looking through the blonde as he muttered incoherently to himself. Only Gwen seemed to still maintain the semblance of keeping Rose in check, although the gun she had pointed at her seemed to really only still be there for show.

"This is impossible," sighed Jack; Rose was glad to hear the cold, angry tone he'd been using was melting away. "Where were you?" He asked her, clear blue eyes (she'd forgotten how entrancing they were) full of need and fear and just a bit of hope (although Rose could have easily been projecting that).

"Torchwood One, I told you," she said.

"No, I mean other than that. Where _were_ you?"

"London," she tried again. "Well, not _London_ London… Okay, this part's gonna sound a bit mad, but, well, you've traveled with the Doctor, so I doubt anything sounds very mad to you anymore either, does it?" Jack let out a single, mirthless chuckle; encouraged by his response, Rose hurried onward. "Anyway, I've been in another universe for a while. My family lives there now, and Mickey, you remember him? He's over there, too. Only thing is, they all chose to go there, but as for me," she shrugged, setting the alien console down on the floor, "I sort of ended up stuck there. The Doctor said it wasn't possible for me to get back, not without collapsing both universes and all that, but I guess not, at least with this thing."

After doing nothing but stare at her for so long, Jack suddenly couldn't look at her at all. His eyes bored into the floor for a moment, deep in thought.

"This can't be happening," he said finally. "You can't be you. He said—"

"But I _am_, Jack!" She couldn't stop tears from welling up in her eyes now. "It's me! It's Rose! The same Rose who drank champagne and danced with you on an invisible spaceship."

Jack smiled, a distant smile, but a real one nonetheless. "Moonlight Serenade," he said. "Glen Miller."

"Still can't hear that without thinking of you," she sniffed, taking her chance to move forward until she was nearly touching him. "God, I've missed you, Captain Jack Harkness."

"Rose Tyler," he murmured, brushing a tear off her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

"Hello," she managed to smile through a sob.

"Hello," Jack laughed softly.

"Hello," she repeated, unsure if she were giggling or still crying. Both, maybe. Somehow, it didn't seem to matter.

"If there were anyone to defy the laws of the universe, it'd be you." With that, he pulled her into a hug, the sort of earth-shattering, time-stopping hug most could only hope to receive once in a lifetime, usually reserved for sailors presumed lost at sea.

"So after all that," drawled Owen, "it turns out she _is_ who she said, and I was right after all?"

"Savor it while it lasts," Jack retorted, still unwilling to let go of the woman in his arms.


	9. Chapter Nine

"Let's try this again," said a very different, much more relaxed Captain Jack Harkness. "Everyone, this is one of my very oldest friends, Rose Tyler. Rose, this would be the team."

"Team of what?" Rose asked, extracting herself from the Captain's arms and moving to where there was a little more open space. She still wasn't quite sure where they were, but whatever this place was, it was _massive_. Staircases leading in every direction around the space, as well as a good amount of general clutter, gave it the illusion of being a bit cramped, but once she stood back and simply took it all in, the place was really quite overwhelming. "Wait," she said quickly, as she caught sight of a tile mosaic on one wall that she'd previously overlooked. "This is Torchwood? You work at Torchwood?"

"Torchwood Three, actually," Jack offered.

"Really?" Rose was impressed. "So we're in Cardiff? Blimey, where'd you manage to hide this place? No, don't tell me." She circled the room, biting her lip in concentration as she thought. "Cool, damp, a bit musty— it's underground, I'd say. And that big pillar… oh my God, we're under the water tower, aren't we?"

"Excellent deduction," Jack remarked approvingly.

"Torchwood agent," she replied, flashing her security badge. "A jealous one, too! Our Torchwood Three is not nearly this impressive. They just took over an old dance hall and slapped your basic perception filter on it."

"Oh, the Ritz?" Jack nodded. "I remember those plans. Vetoed them myself. Already enough ghosts hanging around there without our help."

"I don't know about ghosts," said Rose, "but we get our share of teenage vandals, still thinking it's a derelict. We hand out Retcon like breath mints, I'm telling you."

"Er, Jack?" The Asian woman, Toshiko, spoke up. "We still don't know how she got in here. Sensors register that she's here, but there's no record of an alert initializing. I mean, it may well just be a bug in the system, but it's still worrisome."

"Well," Rose shrugged, "I've got security clearance back in my Torchwood; is there a chance that it just transferred over?"

"A chance, sure," the woman acknowledged, "but the chances of the codes being exactly the same would be… _infinitesimal_."

"She'll be on this for days now," grumbled Owen, although he quieted down after a pointed look from the Captain.

"Rose," Jack continued, "Toshiko Sato, resident technical expert; Owen Harper—"

"_Doctor_," interjected Owen. "It's _Doctor_ Owen Harper. When will someone remember that?"

"Probably when it stops winding you up so much," Gwen remarked with a cheeky grin. With her presence as armed backup no longer needed, she'd retired to a desk chair in front of her workstation, leaning back in it languidly.

"And that would be Gwen Cooper, our liaison with the police," said Jack.

"Police liaison? That's brilliant!" Rose exclaimed. "We could definitely use someone like that. Whose idea was it?"

"Hers, actually," remarked the Captain. "And last but not least, you seem to already know Mister Ianto Jones, our general support."

"Er, hello," said Ianto with a somewhat strained smile. Rose did her best to smile apologetically in his direction; it had been a stupid slip to think he was the Ianto she knew when she first saw him, and now that she could see him up close, the differences were obvious. While her Ianto had his subdued moments, quiet seemed to engulf this one's entire existence. He reminded Rose a bit of a stray kitten, all shy hesitance and nervous energy, almost as if he'd evaporate if she got too close.

"Anyway, Rose," said Jack, motioning to the device now lying on the floor. "You said this is what got you here?"

"What? Oh, yeah," she nodded. "Go ahead." With a nod to the team, Jack began clearing off a nearby table, while Toshiko hefted the artifact onto the surface.

"A bit heavy, isn't it?" The young woman remarked, putting on a pair of square-rimmed glasses as she bent to examine it.

"It is, yeah," Rose agreed, "but the thing is, it wasn't when it first… I don't know, 'went off?' The terminology's lost on me."

"Went off' works just fine," Jack said with a laugh. "Any idea how to operate it?"

"Nope, it just sort of turned on in my hands."

"Well, nothing happened when I picked it up," said Tosh. "Is there a chance it blew out? Crossing through universes would take a lot of power, theoretically."

"A chance, sure," Jack assented, "but let's not just assume it's hopelessly broken just yet. Owen, check to see if it's got isometric controls; if it's latched onto her biosignature, she may be the only one who can work it."

"On it," nodded Owen, ducking into another room, an infirmary by the looks of it.

"Gwen," said the Captain. "Energy readings? The usual, you know."

"Ahead of you," Gwen called out from her workstation, where she had already begun sorting through data coming in from Tosh's scans.

"Oh, and Ianto?" Jack gave the Welshman a charming smile.

"Yes, sir?" Ianto looked up from his organizing, a benign smile across his face.

"Coffee and pizza?" Came the request.

"Of course, sir," he nodded, heading into what appeared to be a kitchen unit. Rose looked on after him for a moment, not realizing for a moment or two that Jack was asking her something, presumably about the object.

"Sorry," she said. "Could I have a sec? I need to… do something." Jack nodded distractedly in assent before turning around to see what Gwen had made of the readings, while Rose followed Ianto into the kitchen.

"Is this what he meant when he said 'general support' earlier?" She asked. "You make the coffee and file the reports?"

"Pretty much, yes," he said; Rose noticed that he deliberately did not look up at her, instead focusing on the coffee maker in front of him.

"But… you're a _brilliant_ field agent," she said in a startled tone. "I mean it, absolutely amazing. What're you doing playing secretary to Jack Harkness?"

"Well, if you must know," he sighed, "I wanted to get out of London. I had a month left in my internship, but after Canary Wharf, I just wanted to get away, so I took the first position that opened up."

"After Canary Wharf," Rose said softly. She couldn't blame him for transferring; it had been part of her own reason for taking the internship at Torchwood Three when she had. Memories resurfaced after her visit to Bad Wolf Bay that still stung, and proved to only sweeten the offer of one of the most sought-after internships in the entire Institute.

"Turned out to be for the best," he said with a shrug. "Everyone who stayed behind lost their jobs when they shut down the Tower. Here, I'm getting paid to do the same tidying and filing I did for free as an intern."

"And that's why you recognized my name?"

"I remember every name I filed on the death lists that day," he said softly. "I assumed you'd been converted with the rest of them."

"Well, I'm certainly glad to say that's not true," she remarked. "Is that when you split up, then?"

"Pardon?"

"With Lisa. That look you gave me when I mentioned your wedding… I know you two aren't together anymore, but is that why? I can imagine that kind of stress would put a strain on things, or the distance, or—"

"Lisa and I didn't break up," said Ianto in a cold, detached voice, meeting Rose's eyes for the first time. "She was killed, like the rest of them."

"You mean…" She grabbed onto the refrigerator, knees suddenly giving way. She certainly hadn't expected _that_ answer. "Oh my God." Quite involuntarily, she felt tears forming in her eyes, and furiously tried to blink them away.

"Sorry," he murmured, awkwardly patting her on the shoulder. "That was rather blunt of me. You're friends with her too, then?"

"Yeah," she nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat.

"You—" Ianto stammered. "You said you were in my wedding, which means Lisa and I…" Rose didn't say anything, but nodded yes. "Wow." It was clear he wasn't quite sure how to process the information. "Are we happy?"

"We shouldn't talk about this," she said quickly. "It's another universe. I'm sorry about earlier; you're a different person, and there's no sense in me comparing the two of you. It's impolite, really, and I'm sorry."

"Answer the question," he pleaded, quiet desperation in his tone. "Please, Rose. I need to know."

The use of her name made her breath catch; so much for not comparing the two, she thought. "Very happy," she finally said. "Lisa's… She's pregnant."

Ianto's eyes widened. "Really?" A faint smile ghosted across his features. "That's great. F-for them, I mean.

"Listen," he said, gesturing toward a long hallway, "I have to go upstairs to order the pizza; want to come up with me?"

"Sure," said Rose, smiling widely. "I don't think I'm quite ready to join in all the research they're doing," she commented as they started upstairs. "Is that wrong of me?"

"Not at all," Ianto assured her. "They'll just be poking and prodding at it until it does something of note. After they figure that out comes the interesting part." Rose giggled at his description; he certainly had the dry sense of humor her Ianto did.

They reached the upper level, which Rose noticed was cleverly disguised as a tourism bureau.

"Do you actually know what all this says?" She asked, hoisting herself onto a counter and idly flipping through a brochure.

"Most of them," he nodded, before picking up the phone and making the pizza order.

"God, I miss pizza," she groaned, laying back on the countertop. "They don't have pizza there, in, you know, the parallel world. Took me forever to figure that out; it's the little differences, see? Just had a craving one night, and no one knew what the hell I was talking about. Finally had to sprinkle pasta sauce and cheese over a piece of French bread. Wasn't half bad, mind you, but three years without a nice, hot, delivered pizza is murder, I'm telling you."

"I believe it," Ianto nodded. "Pizza's the staple foodstuff of Torchwood; I can't imagine what would become of the team if Jack or Owen were forced to cook."

"Nah, we mostly just order a lot of Chinese," she shrugged. "Plus I happen to know that you're not half bad when armed with a spatula and a casserole dish." Ianto blushed furiously, turning around to work at detangling the beads hanging from the doorframe behind him.

"Listen," she said, sitting up and facing him. "I know it's weird, me knowing you— well, the _other_ you— and all that, but I really hope it doesn't put a strain on things. I'd like to get to know _you_ while I'm here, you know? Maybe be friends in our own right?"

Ianto looked up at her from the door beads, wearing the first real smile she'd yet seen from him. "I'd like that," he said.


	10. Chapter Ten

"Ouch!" Rose reached out with her free arm and smacked Owen, who was busy inserting a needle into her other forearm. "You're supposed to warn me before you just stick it in!"

"Would you rather I pulled it out and warned you this time?" The young doctor retorted, "'cause if you hit me in the shoulder again, you're gonna mess it up." He gave her a pointed look before busying himself with the blood draw once more. She sighed annoyedly, but let him finish his work.

"So, you're a friend of Jack's," he commented as he taped a bandage on her arm.

"Yeah," she said with an uncomprehending nod.

"Then do _you_ know who he is?" Owen asked. "Because we've all looked him up, and we know he's not who he says. What's the story?"

"That question could take years to answer," laughed Rose. "You're probably better off asking him yourself."

"Tried that," remarked the young man. "Didn't get very far. Well, then do you at least know where he went?"

"What do you mean?" She asked.

Owen sighed. "He just disappeared one day. We'd just managed to open and shut the Rift, save the world, all that, and he'd finally come back to life—"

"Wait, what?"

"He dies sometimes. No big deal, it doesn't stick."

"_What?_"

"Will you let me finish the fucking story?" He demanded. "He wakes up, fine and dandy, only to disappear an hour or so later, taking his freaky hand-in-a-jar along with him."

"He's got a hand in a jar?" Rose looked faintly ill.

"Not anymore," said Owen, "but I'm getting to that. He's gone, so we try to go on without him, only that lasts about twenty-four hours before we end up following some useless lead to the middle of nowhere, and when we get back, he's there, all happy and touchy-feely like he hadn't seen us for a year or something, and he won't tell us where he went."

"I might have an idea," Rose mused, smiling knowingly.

"Wherever it was, he left the hand behind, thank God," Owen countered. "But then it happened again. This time he lasted a whole three days before swanning off again for six weeks, but this time, he just wandered in, casual as you please, like he hadn't even left!"

"Eh," Rose shrugged. "Working here can desensitize you to things like time after a while."

"Tell me about it," he agreed. "But even so, we figured he'd be angry or at least a bit _worried_ when we showed him the date, but he just sort of laughed and shook his head.

"The weird thing was," he continued, "after the second time, he started to get phone calls. _Real_ phone calls."

Rose didn't understand. "What's so strange about phone calls?"

"He'd never gotten them before," said Owen. "I mean, he'd get occasional work stuff, from the other Torchwood heads or requests from UNIT and things, but other than that, the only other people who ever called him were us. It was actually what tipped us off in the first place that he wasn't quite normal."

"What, other than the inability to die?"

"Before we found that out, I mean. I don't care how secret Torchwood wants to be, we all get calls from family members and friends and the like. Well, until it takes over your life and you lose touch with all of them."

"Is that what really happens?" Rose looked confused. "Rather depressing, that."

"It didn't happen to you?"

"No, but everyone I knew already worked there, so I'm not really a proper judge." Thinking back, however, she realized it was true; none of her coworkers really spoke of friends outside the Institute, and despite attempts to prevent inter-office romance, it was ultimately the only kind of relationship she'd seen, apart from Mickey's waitress.

"But all of a sudden, he's getting personal calls left and right. From family members, no less! Now, how does a person who doesn't exist get family?"

"Family?" That stumped Rose. "What sort of family?"

"A nephew and a brother," said Owen. "The brother's a little iffy though, 'cause the same voice calls as his old roommate, his stepfather, and— just once— his ex-husband, although I think he might have been drunk that time."

"Hmm…" Rose could guess who the 'brother' was. "How d'you know who's calling?"

"They call the main line," Owen explained. "We didn't notice it at first, figured it was just business, but when they didn't come with any orders, we got curious. Now we make sure that someone gets to it before him, just to see who it is before patching it through. It's not just family, either; a couple of girls started phoning too, saying they were old friends, like you did. Any chance you know 'em?"

"No," said Rose thoughtfully. It had been easy enough to figure out where Jack had gone during his 'disappearances,' but these new additions to the cast were a complete mystery. "No, I don't. Are you sure they weren't just old girlfriends?"

"Not with that tone," Owen shook his head. "Sounded more like fan club members than exes.

"You're done here," he said, holding up the vial of blood he'd taken. "Now to test this to see if you make it go."

"That the technical term, 'make it go?'" Rose snickered.

"Always," replied Owen with a devilish grin. She returned it as she hopped off the exam table, only to immediately step wrong in her heels and twist an ankle.

"That'll teach me to travel between universes in heels," she quipped.

"I think Gwen's got a spare pair of trainers downstairs," Owen offered. "Not exactly what we're supposed to use the archives for, but it works. I could show you down there, if you want."

"Are you sure?" Rose smiled uncertainly. "Aren't you supposed to be running tests or something?"

"Sort of," he admitted, "but really, I just put it in the machine and the rest is done for me."

"Making you a bit… I don't know, redundant?" She giggled.

"Keep laughing, Blondie," he smirked, but still led her downstairs. "See if I give you a lollipop.

"Wait," he said, stopping her in front of a door into what looked to be a hall of cells. "I should warn you, there are a couple of pretty nasty-looking creatures down here, you might want to brace yourself."

"I've seen weevils before, Owen," Rose nodded. "I can handle it. Thanks, though." Once he opened the door, however, she heard a noise unlike anything she'd ever heard, a sort of nasal, primal groan. She looked to her left, and quickly backed up against the wall behind her with a yelp. "Oh my God, what the hell is that?"

"What?" Owen looked from the cell to her, and back to the cell. "You said you'd seen weevils before."

"_That's_ what weevils look like here?" Rose still looked horrified, but did her best to compose herself and continue down the hallway.

"Why, what did you think they looked like?"

"I don't know, ours are furrier, with huge eyes. They look sort of like giant bush babies, except with big, razor-sharp teeth." She looked back over her shoulder at the weevil, still sneering at her menacingly. "Can we get out of here? I'd really like to just get the shoes and go."

"What, are you scared?" Owen looked extremely amused at this.

"No!" Cried Rose indignantly.

"Really? You can pet it, if you want."

"Y-you can do that?" She stuttered.

"Nah," he said after a moment. "Janet'll probably take your hand off."

"Janet? It has a name? Its name is Janet?"

"And what's wrong with Janet?" Owen asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Nothing at all," she said quickly once she realized they'd stopped. "Let's just go."

About ten minutes later, they re-emerged in the main room (Rose made sure to keep her eyes on the floor in front of her during their second trip past the cells) to find the rest of the team poring over the readings on Gwen's monitor.

"See, there!" Gwen exclaimed. "There it goes again, just a spike in the energy absorption!"

"Missing anything good?" Rose asked, joining the knot by the workstation.

"Doubt it," muttered Owen under his breath, making her giggle.

"We're just examining the energy readings around the artifact," Tosh explained. "It seems to be absorbing it, but something keeps making it increase its rate of charge, and we're not sure what."

"For a moment, it looked like it was reacting to the people around it," said Ianto, "but it's too erratic to assume that's the official answer."

Rose gave the readings a perfunctory glance before approaching the table on which the device sat. Judging by the noises made by those behind her, the little line on the graph had jumped again with her movement.

"That's the most dramatic change yet," commented Gwen. "Maybe it _has_ picked her out, sort of at least. Do you have the results from her blood yet, Owen?"

"Not yet," said the physician, slipping back into the infirmary to check the machine.

"Try picking it up, Rose," said Jack. Nodding, she lifted the device, only to find it light up in her hands once again.

"Levels are steady," said Tosh. "Perhaps it's done charging."

"Any of you speak Greek, by any chance?" Rose asked. "'Cause there are a lot of little symbols and things I can't understand here." Ianto quickly picked up a camera and took a few shots of the screen that automatically fed into the computer.

"Translating…" murmured Toshiko, quickly typing in codes. "It's… asking for something, but I'm not sure what yet. It'll be finished in a moment."

"That's all?"

"All we have here, anyway," she shrugged. "It may be assumed that the operator already knows how to work it."

"But I don't," Rose pointed out. "Would that be a problem?"

"Destination!" Cried Tosh. "It's asking for a destination."

"What?"

"Rose, you might want to put it down," said Jack, "at least until we—"

Rose never heard the end of his sentence, nor did she get the chance to put the object down before that unique pushing-and-pulling feeling started again…

… and she found herself standing in front of Sterling once more.


	11. Chapter Eleven

"Anything— oh, wait. Wow."

Rose blinked a few times, stunned to be facing the other Torchwood agent again. "What did you say?" She finally managed to ask, although she only half-listened for an answer.

"Nothing," said Sterling. "You just zoned out for a few seconds, and then… you _really_ didn't like those shoes, did you?"

"Hmm?" She was having a bit of trouble processing anything he said, her mind racing as it was. Was it possible she'd imagined the whole thing?

"Your shoes," he repeated, pointing downward. "They changed. Didn't know you liked maroon." Rose followed his gaze, finding that her shoes had indeed been replaced with the ones she'd borrowed from Gwen. "Is that what it does, then? Changes your clothes for you? And hair, apparently. Never seen it down before, I like it."

_It can't have been a hallucination, then,_ she thought, running a hand through the blonde hair she'd forgotten she'd unpinned from her usual twist. _But if it really happened, then why am I back here?_

"No," she murmured. "Not when I'm so close!" She punctuated her words with a sharp shake of the device. "Do it again!"

"Er… Rose?" Sterling looked confused and more than a little worried by her change in attitude. "Is everything all right?"

"Just fine," Rose hissed through clenched teeth, still focused intently on the object in her hands.

"Are you sure?" He rested a hand on her shoulder; she knew it was meant to be reassuring, but in her frantic state, it proved only to exasperate her. "Sometimes interaction with the artifacts is a little unnerving, but don't worry, it passes. Usually." He smiled, looking at her in such a way to indicate he was joking, trying to lift her spirits, but she was having none of it.

"Sterling, this isn't really the time," she sighed. "I've got to get this going again, otherwise they'll be wondering where I've gone."

"'They?' Who's 'they?'" He asked. "What's going on? What happened?"

"I was gone," said Rose, doing her best to explain even though she was still at a loss for words herself. There was no way she could simply launch into talk of parallel universes and time travel, but without it, she wasn't quite sure she could verbalize what had just occurred. "It took me somewhere I haven't been in a long time. I mean, a _really_ long time. Somewhere I thought I'd never go again. I don't know, it was like a teleport, or a transmat, or something—"

"Rose," Sterling interrupted, "you didn't go anywhere. I've been watching you the whole time. We were talking about Cardiff, and then you got lost in thought for a moment, and then you looked up. See? Here all along."

"You don't understand!" Rose exclaimed. "I was _there_! It was too real to have just been a memory."

"Who knows?" He shrugged. "It may have amplified your memories, like virtual reality or something. Not everything in here's a weapon or a tool; some of it's just for entertainment."

"But what about the shoes?" Rose shot back. "I've got Gwen's shoes. That's more than any virtual reality I've ever seen."

"…Who's Gwen?" Was all Sterling could think to say.

"That doesn't matter!" Rose groaned. "I've just got to get this working, okay?" He didn't look happy— on the contrary, he appeared quite agitated— but at the determined look on Rose's face, sighed in resignation and nodded his support. "They said something about energy readings," she said, examining the object once more. "Like it was charging, or something."

"Did 'they' have any idea what kind of energy it was absorbing?" Asked Sterling.

"Not specifically what kind," she replied, choosing to ignore the somewhat skeptical intonation he'd employed. "Just that it jumped when in close proximity to people."

"Hmm," he muttered, thinking for a moment. "Sounds like it's reacting to electromagnetic fields. Most living things generate a weak one. A stronger source of electromagnetic energy shouldn't be too hard to find in here; we've got a couple of artifacts that produce it."

"It changed its absorption rate based on the person near it," she remembered suddenly. "Any idea what that means?"

"Haven't the foggiest," said Sterling. "Sorry."

"Damn," Rose muttered with a jerk of her head. "Well, no matter. You were saying, electromagnetic energy?"

"What? Oh, yeah." He gestured vaguely in one direction. "A couple of things were registering it, but I really don't— hey!" Rose, clearly on a mission, had breezed past him at the word 'registering,' and was already hunting the shelves for anything that might aid her.

"What am I looking for, exactly?" She asked without looking up.

"It's in the next aisle, two shelves up," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Come on, I'll show you." Rose smiled at him in thanks, but he simply led the way to her quarry.

He was getting cold again, she finally noticed, the same stiffness that had surfaced after the last time they'd been in the Blue Room together. Just for a moment, she considered putting the artifact back on the shelf and continuing to let him impress her, like she had been; it would be easy enough to brush off what she'd seen and done, call it virtual reality or plain wishful thinking, and go on with her life. She had a good job, and a family, not to mention a date that night; couldn't that be enough? No need to recount old memories and play alien-hunter in another universe when she could do the same here, right?

Except…

Rose hadn't wanted to think about it when she first realized where she'd ended up; in fact, she'd forced herself not to. There was no way, however, to keep herself from it forever, the thought that setting foot in her home universe had sparked the hope that a certain old memory just might not have to stay that way. So she hefted the device under one arm, took a deep, steadying breath, and followed Sterling into the next aisle.

"We call it a crybaby," he said, grunting as he lifted the heavy object off its shelf. "It's essentially a high-tech decoy, faking life signs on a scan by generating the electromagnetic fields and heat signatures that would normally indicate life. It's a little too unwieldy for standardized use, but it should suit your purposes pretty nicely."

"How do I work it?" She asked, kneeling down beside it.

"Just pull the lever on the side— yeah, that one— toward you."

"And it'll just give me the energy like that?"

"It should," he nodded.

Rose cupped a hand under his chin, gently forcing him to look into her eyes. Thanks," she said. "I mean, really, thank you." She bent over, pulling the lever on the crybaby. As soon as it turned on, she could feel a difference in the artifact, almost as if it came alive. The lights blinked on, earning a brief whoop of success from Rose. She grinned widely, looking up at Sterling with a triumphant gleam in her eyes. The pained look on his face, however, somewhat dampened her joy of victory.

"Don't do this, Rose," he blurted out, his expression more serious than she'd ever seen it. "Please, just think about it first. If this really does what you think it does, then the implications are…" He trailed off, clearly recognizing a losing battle if he ever saw one, but resolving to try anyway. "Please."

Rose slowly shook her head, sparing him a look of silent apology before she felt the sensation of inter-universal travel pull her away.

There weren't any guns this time, Rose noted gladly after she and the artifact were unceremoniously deposited back in the Hub. Instead, she was greeted with a few slightly confused smiles of welcome and a quick once-over with Tosh's scanner.

"How long has it been?" She asked, glancing around. By the looks of it, it couldn't have been too long; everyone was still wearing the same clothing, the pizza Ianto had ordered was sitting on the table and looked to only be about half-eaten, and unless she was mistaken, the earlier readings from the device were still on Gwen's workstation screen.

"About half an hour," said Tosh, "give or take a few minutes."

"Where did you end up?" Gwen asked.

"Back in the Blue Room," replied Rose with a roll of her eyes. "Didn't take long to get back, once I found a proper power source."

"But if you got home," observed Owen, "why would you need to come back?"

"Who said I was trying to get back there?" Rose asked sharply, toeing the floor. "Besides, there's no way I'd leave without giving back Gwen's trainers first. When dealing with space-time travel, mistakes happen, but shoe theft is unforgivable." Her quip earned a soft, awkward chuckle from those around, but it was soon overtaken by an uncomfortable silence she couldn't quite explain.

Before re-activating the artifact, she'd almost felt like Jack's team liked her. They reminded her of what she'd always expected field work to be: freewheeling, seat-of-your-pants excitement, all about improvisation and holding on tight when adventure took you. As she'd experienced it in Pete's universe, however, there was a lot more paperwork than that, but Jack's Torchwood was making it look like it could be that unbridled and fun after all.

Only now they were all looking at her with _that _look again, that apprehensive appraisal usually reserved for regarding alien life, and in her experience, _that _look rarely went hand-in-hand with friendship. When, exactly, had she become a creature to be studied?

"Rose," said the Captain abruptly, "we need to talk. Think we could step aside for a bit?" Rose nodded, swallowing thickly as she followed him into his office.

"Are these what I think they are?" She asked with an amused quirk of a smile, plucking a pair of 3-D glasses off the lamp on which they were hanging and slipping them over her face.

"They most certainly are," said Jack. "I managed to sneak them off the scene at Canary Wharf." She nodded absently at his words as she wiggled her fingers in front of her face, watching the particles of Void stuff float and shift. Owen's scans had been right; she was positively _drenched_ in it. Jack watched her for a moment, smiling idly; looking up, she caught him staring and blushed, dropping her hand back down by her side. "Don't stop on my part," he remarked with a grin, making her already-pink cheeks deepen. "Really though," he continued, "we need to discuss a few things, because I think there's been a misunderstanding of what we're doing."

"What do you think we're doing?" Rose asked.

"I thought we were trying to send you home."

"Home?" She looked incredulous. "Jack, my home is _here_, in _this_ universe. What makes you think I'd want to go back there now that I've made it back here?"

"It actually wouldn't surprise me," he remarked. "You have friends there, family, your father…"

"Matty," Rose offered, staring vacantly at the desk before her. "My little brother."

"There, see?" Jack raised his eyebrows. "Not to mention you're apparently soaring through the Torchwood ranks. I just think you should consider everything before you give that up."

"Who says I'm giving it up?" Rose's voice raised in pitch, but whether it was out of agitation at how wrong he was or how right he was, she wasn't sure. "We've seen that I can jump back and forth fairly easily."

"But don't you see how dangerous that is?" Jack exclaimed. "The cracks between the universes were sealed, the Doctor made sure of that; this device of yours could be causing more damage than we could ever possibly imagine."

"So I shouldn't risk jumping back!" Rose retorted. "I could stay here. Mum and Mickey knew I'd jump at any chance to come back, and Matty's too young to remember me properly, so he won't be too sad after a while, and Dad— I mean, Pete, I mean, _bugger_, I don't know what I mean— he'll be a little disappointed, sure, but we're not all that close, really, so—"

"Rose, do you hear what you're saying?" Jack looked utterly stunned. "You're talking about your _family_, people who love you, not minding too much that you've disappeared without at least saying goodbye? Never mind what you expect here; awfully hard to find a job, with you being legally dead and all that."

"I can work here," said Rose. "I know my way around a Torchwood base, I can help. Hell, I'll just make the coffee, free Ianto up. I'm telling you, you're wasting a valuable asset, not using him as a full field agent."

There was silence for a few moments, an uncomfortable sort of chasm between them, until he finally spoke.

"Just say it, Rose. Say why you really want to stay here."

"What do you mean?"

"You think I don't know?" Jack's smile was a slightly bitter one. "I've done the research, met the others. He leaves us all behind, making up excuses all the way, or letting us believe it's our own decision to go. We companions all have our stories, but they all end that same way, except for you. Rose, you may be the one person he would never have willingly left behind, and you know that. You'd be mad to find yourself back and not think of that immediately."

Rose bit her lip, blinking back the stinging sensation of tears brimming in her eyes. "I just want to see him," she whispered. "I don't need him to sweep me off my feet and back into the TARDIS, happily ever after; I'm not that naïve. I just want to talk, make sure he's doing okay, and let him know I am. He told me to have a fantastic life, and I want to show him I have, that I didn't freeze in place with nothing but my memories to keep me company. Then I'll go back, I promise, okay?"

"That's the thing, though, Rose," said Jack. "I can't let you see him."


	12. Chapter Twelve

"Let me explain," said Jack, after a brief pause.

"You bloody well better," Rose snapped. She'd tried to pretend that a reunion with the Doctor wasn't in the forefront of her mind, but to admit it and be told she couldn't— no, that he couldn't _let_ her— was absolutely infuriating.

"It's not that I don't understand what you're feeling, because believe me, I do," he said. "It's just… a lot has happened. A lot of time has passed, and it's really not a good idea to drag all this out again, not for anyone involved."

"'Not a good idea?'" Rose scoffed. "What kind of answer is that? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"

"Rose, please, listen to me—"

"No, you listen!" She fumed. "I don't care what you think! Just because _you_ couldn't make it work a second time, or a _third_, it sounds like, doesn't mean you have the right to tell me whether or not I'm allowed to see him."

"Is that what you think this is about?" Jack asked, raising his voice for the first time since she'd arrived. "You think I'm playing some jealous game?"

"Aren't you?" She growled.

"What do you think I am?" Jack fixed her with a gaze so chilling that Rose found she had no response. She fell silent, looking at her hands. "I'm looking out for him as well as you, you know," he remarked softly. "You haven't seen him. He won't admit it, not for a second, but he's changed, dimmed, somehow. It wasn't easy for him, you know; first he lost you, then the only other Time Lord in existence—"

"What?" Rose looked shocked, briefly forgetting her anger. "He always said he was alone."

"That's a long story," sighed Jack.

"I've got time," she replied, leaning forward and putting her elbows on his desk. He looked at her with a warm, sad smile.

"Well, it starts a few months ago, after the team and I had a few problems with the Rift…"

* * *

"Okay, so he drops me off after it's all over," Jack said, "and yeah, I'm a little sad to see him go, but I know that where I'm supposed to be is here, right?" 

"Defending the planet, and all that, yeah," nodded Rose. She'd been listening in rapture for the better part of an hour to his tale of the Doctor, the Master, and the Year that Never Was, all the time deathly envious of this Martha girl he talked about. "And that's the last you saw of him?"

"You'd think so," said Jack, "but not even three days later, I'm sitting in my office, trying to put things in order again, because Owen can't keep the books in order to save his life, when what wayward time machine materializes right in the middle of the Hub?"

* * *

"Jack!" An all-too-familiar boisterous voice echoed through the room. The Captain, leaning against the doorframe, rubbed at one ear with a grimace, willing it to pop. 

"You know," he said, "you should really think before showing up in a place like this. You wouldn't know it now, but we've got a few members of staff who can get a bit trigger-happy." He looked around his deserted headquarters, mentally shaming his team; an actual potential alien threat shows up in the middle of the Hub, and they're all off missing it down at the pub. "Not to mention it's just a bit _loud_ when you do it indoors."

"Right," the Doctor nodded, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Can imagine it's rather perturbing, what with this place being so big and echoey. Cavernous, even. This is your Torchwood?" He looked around approvingly. "A bit more… I don't know, _rugged_, than I expected. I like it.

"Well," he said, "come on then, we're going out for a drink."

"I don't know," said Jack with a playful smirk. "Regeneration or not, I know for a fact that you get a bit handsy when you've been drinking, and while _Martha_ certainly won't mind, I refuse to be made to play the harlot."

The enthusiastic grin that had been plastered across the Doctor's face faded into a wistful, sad expression. "Martha's gone, Jack," he said. "She decided to stay behind with her family when everything was over."

* * *

"Wait, she what?" Rose exclaimed. 

"She went home," said Jack with a shrug. "Her family was in crisis, and she needed to be there to do what she did best: heal."

"I guess," she acceded reluctantly, "but still, how d'you just go and give all that up willingly?"

"Martha's not like us, Rose," Jack pointed out. "Traveling with the Doctor was a break from her life; our lives _were_ the traveling.

"Back to the story, and don't be interrupting this time:"

* * *

"So you've been alone since then," observed Jack. 

"Oh, come on, it hasn't been that long," protested the Doctor. "Day and a half, tops. And besides, it's not like I'm some lost puppy who's gonna cry if no one's there to scratch behind my ears and toss me a biscuit. Give me a bit more credit than that!" He jerked his head toward the open door of the TARDIS. "Now, let's get that drink."

"We could just walk," offered Jack. "There's a nice pub down the street, and my team's there—"

"Nope," the Doctor cut him off. "I'm not here to meet the family, I'm here to have a drink, so come on. I know a good little place in the Fifty-Third Century, somewhere where no one knows us, and they won't mind that I've got soggy shoes on." He punctuated his sentence with a step backwards that landed with a _squelch_.

Sighing in resignation, Jack grabbed his coat off the rack, following the Time Lord into the TARDIS. "Where'd you get so wet?" He asked.

"Would you believe the Titanic?"

* * *

The bar was rather typical of the century in question, if Jack's memory served, all shiny black plastic and multicoloured neon lights tinting everything a dim violet hue, a panel on the wall displaying a series of squiggly lines that twisted and danced along with music that was too loud to be for ambience but too soft to drown out one's thoughts and sorrows. It was exactly the sort of place the former conman had spent countless nights cruising in earlier days, looking for a night's companionship or an easy job; he'd never thought he'd be back in a place like this, and the fact that he was made him very uncomfortable. 

He turned to the Doctor, hoping to talk him into returning to the Hub, or at least choosing another locale, but the Time Lord had already seated himself at the bar and ordered a hypervodka martini from the four-armed bartender.

"Grapefruit juice, please," he requested with a wave, doing his best to get comfortable on the hard barstool; it was a lost cause, he surmised with a wince. To distract himself from the discomfort, he returned to the matter at hand. "So, what brings us here, really?"

"I already told you, a drink!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Just a drink! Why does it need a bloody explanation all of a sudden?"

"Because it's never 'just a drink' with you," replied Jack. "It's never 'just' anything. There's always an 'and' on the end of it. Lunch _and_ saving the universe. A haircut _and_ running for our lives. Drinks _and_—"

"Fine, I get it," grumbled the Doctor. "You think you're _so_ funny."

"It's part of my charm," winked the Captain. Their drinks arrived shortly thereafter; the Doctor threw his back and immediately ordered another, while Jack opted to sip his a little more slowly (he had license to be suspicious; the grapefruit juice he'd received, while tasting fine, was a shade of electric blue that he was fairly sure didn't occur in nature, much less in any sort of grapefruit). "I wouldn't recommend doing that," he remarked, gesturing to the Doctor's enthusiastic gulping of his acrid beverage.

"Oh, come on," scoffed the Time Lord. "It's just a drink."

"Haven't we been over this? And besides, if it were 'just a drink,'" Jack pointed out, "we could have stayed in Cardiff, I told you before."

"And I told _you_ I don't do domestic," the Doctor shot back. "Honestly, I don't know when this'll finally register in that head of yours."

"Probably never," shrugged the Captain. "But domestics or not, slugging hypervodka like that will only lead to heartache."

"Captain," said the Doctor in a slightly condescending tone, "I am a highly-evolved life form; I think I can handle a bit of alcohol." 

As it turned out, he couldn't. 

"You are my best friend!" He slurred, catching Jack in an awkward sort of side-hug. "Did you know that?"

"Uh, thanks, Doc," replied the Captain. "Really, though, I think it might be a good idea if you—"

"Everyone else left me," remarked the Doctor, apparently not noticing Jack had spoken at all. "Even you. Except we're still friends, right? Aren't we, Jack? Jackie Jack Jack?" He crinkled his face into a distorted expression that seemed to amuse him greatly.

"Of course we are, Doctor," Jack assured him, using the subsequent burst of giggles from the inebriated alien as a chance to discreetly dispose of the remains of the fifth martini. "So, what's new for you?" He asked, steadying the Time Lord as he nearly toppled off his seat.

"Nothing," said the Doctor. "You left, Martha left, everybody left, the end." His words were punctuated with a sharp exhale of breath, ruffling his hair; under other circumstances, it would have been almost cute.

"Oh, come on now," protested Jack, "you've got to have more than that! What was that you were saying about the Titanic?"

"Oh yeah!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Crashed right into it. Or rather, _it_ crashed into _me_." He snickered again. "How the TARDIS ended up on that iceberg, I'll never know."

"I never went to the Titanic," remarked Jack. "Not that I can remember, at least; all that time the Time Agency took, who knows? Thought about it, though, when I had the chance this time around." He grinned wryly into his blue drink. "I could even let myself drown if I wanted, to 'get the full experience' of it. I didn't go through with it, clearly; part of me still regrets that."

"Don't," said the Doctor, still visibly intoxicated, but far more serious than he had been. "Believe me. Sounds like it should be fascinating, watching real history in the making, until you get there, and it's just… it's like watching a mass execution." He had that far-away look, Jack noted, where he was staring at the bar, but really looking through it, a look he usually reserved for talking about Gallifrey, or about Rose. "You stand on deck, with all of them panicking around you, women and children and grown men, crying for their mothers, and you know there's absolutely nothing you can do except sit there and watch them die."

"I… wow," sighed Jack. "That's bleak. Totally true, I'm sure, but bleak nonetheless."

"And you know what the worst part of it all is?" The Doctor asked. "It's the freezing. It'd be one thing if everyone were like you, 'cause you left so you could go forward. It was a sign of growth, and I respected it. I respect _you._ Have I told you that? Because I do. I respect you, and I _like_ you." He glanced around, looking for his drink, and pouted upon discovering his empty glass. "Everyone else just sort of… stops. The minute they step out the door for the last time, they're suddenly full of nothing but memories and regrets and oh God, if they'd only appreciated it when they had the chance, and any life they'd had before me is poisoned or abandoned altogether, because they can't get out of their bloody heads!"

"When, exactly, did we stop talking about the Titanic?" Jack asked, making the Doctor fix him with a withering glance that dripped with condescension. Or, at least, the Doctor _attempted_ to fix him with such a look; achieving such heights of haughtiness was a difficult task when one's eyes were apparently having trouble focusing. The Captain smothered a chuckle.

"Laugh all you want, Jack," said the Doctor, settling for a half-hearted sneer and a roll of his eyes, "but I've come to believe I pretty effectively ruin the life of anyone who dares to travel with me."

"That's a lie, and you know it," scoffed Jack. "There's no way I'd be better off not knowing you, for one."

"Talk to me when you're a head in a jar."

"Something tells me I don't want to know what that means."

The Doctor gave him a devilish grin that confirmed Jack's statement.

"I know there are more success stories than that," he said. "After all, I'm aware of at least one married couple who would probably not have become involved at all if not for you."

"Maybe," acknowledged the Doctor, "but for every married couple, there's a sad, lonely soul who's barely moved since they left."

"Since they left, or _you_ did?" The Time Lord was silent, so Jack pushed further. "I know how you work, and if they don't decide to leave on their own, you twist things until they _think_ they've decided, and if _that_ doesn't work, you just leave them somewhere!"

"You've met Sarah Jane," remarked the Doctor.

"Not yet, but I've heard all about her."

"And what did you hear?" He asked. "That she's a 'slightly eccentric' journalist who lives alone except for a mechanical _dog,_ and leads a generally depressing existence of pining for the old days and chasing false leads? Because that's _exactly_ my point."

"Slightly eccentric… Doctor, when was the last time you saw Sarah Jane?"

"Last year some time, at a school."

"The incident at Deffry Vale," noted Jack. "You were there? I should have known." He grinned, shaking his head. "Anyhow, you've clearly missed a lot."

"A lot of what?" The Doctor asked blearily.

Jack took a moment to look the Time Lord up and down, then motioned to the bartender, slapping one hand against the opposite forearm. Nodding in recognition, the bartender slipped a small plastic envelope to the Captain, who tore it open, unsheathing a small square of sticky, flexible material, which he slapped onto the inside of the Doctor's wrist.

"Wossat?" Asked the Doctor, eyes already regaining focus.

"Sobriety patch," replied Jack. "Where we're going, you're going to want to be coherent."


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Author's Note: **Greetings from London! I'm living here for the next three months as part of an abroad program, and getting settled in slowed the progress of this chapter, so that's my bad.  
I should probably warn you now, this chapter won't make a lot of sense unless you watched "Invasion of the Bane," the Sarah Jane Adventures Christmas special-pilot-thing. I originally intended to post this on Monday, to coincide with the premiere of the first episode of the series, which I missed because of class (if anyone knows when it's airing again, I'd be much obliged), so if there are any inconsistencies between this and the series, I plead ignorance.  
And now, without further ado, Chapter Thirteen!

* * *

"Can I help you?" The middle-aged woman who answered the door stared at him expectantly.

"Sarah Jane Smith?"

"Yes, what can I do for you?"

"Ms. Smith, my name is Captain Jack Harkness. I work for the Torchwood Institute, and we've been alerted to some rather bizarre goings-on in the area."

"Have you, now?" Sarah Jane smiled demurely, clearly stating without saying a word that she was meticulously calculating her response to the man's presence. "Sorry, haven't a clue what you're talking about."

"Ms. Smith, you recently adopted a child, one Luke Smith, is that correct?"

"Er, yes, I have," she replied. "Luke's still asleep upstairs."

"Curious, how quickly the adoption went through," Jack eyed the woman in the doorway. "Especially considering that according to _our_ records, the boy didn't exist until about two months ago. Am I correct in that assessment of time?"

"I'm sorry, sir," Sarah Jane shook her head in feigned bewilderment, "but I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."

"Come on, now, Ms. Smith, no more pretending. Torchwood knows all about your contact with alien life, as well as the situation with the Bubble Shock factory that resulted in this adoption. You hide yourself well, but not _that_ well."

Her face fell ever-so-slightly. "What, pray tell, am I hiding, Captain?"

"Ms. Smith, Torchwood may only be a shadow of what it once was," Jack remarked, "but the shadow of a giant is still pretty damn big. We keep track of every crackpot with an abduction story or a shoddy sighting. Cases like yours, however, are watched far more closely, and with far more respect, for that matter. For a civilian, you certainly know a lot."

"It's a hobby," Sarah Jane said tightly.

"Some might say you know _too_ much—"

"_Honestly!_" A new voice sounded from behind the hedge. "Jack, will you quit mucking about?"

The composed, professional mask of the man at Sarah Jane's doorstep suddenly crumbled into a broad grin. "Oh, come on," he protested, rolling his eyes good-naturedly as he turned to face whoever was standing out of her line of sight. "It was going to be fantastic! I must say, though, I didn't think I could keep up the 'ominous, intimidating government agent' shtick for much longer."

"Yeah, well, if looks could kill, she'd have decapitated you by now." The man speaking finally moved into view. "Never threaten a woman's child; she'll go all 'mother bear' on you. Sarah Jane Smith, how are you?"

"D-Doctor?" Stuttered Sarah Jane, hardly believing her eyes.

The Doctor smiled, stepping forward to envelop her in a warm hug. "It's been too long," he remarked. "I thought I'd only seen you last year, and here you are, the mother of a thirteen-year-old boy. How did that happen, by the way?"

"It's rather a long story," said Sarah Jane. "Suffice it to say I've been busy since last we met."

"So it appears," he said, "and I want to hear all about it. Tell me. Tell me everything." In that moment, the Doctor's eyes held a strange desperation that Jack could never quite explain to himself; regardless, it was only there for a flash, before a noise at the top of the stairs announced the entrance of Sarah Jane's son, the infamous Luke. He stayed on the landing, staring down at them with an odd smile. The Doctor looked up at the boy, hand raised in cautious greeting. "Hello there."

"Are you policemen?" Luke asked.

"Er, no," said the Doctor, his grin fading into a confused frown.

"Are you detectives?"

"Nope." Jack shook his head, shrugging apologetically.

"Are you undercover?"

"Not really," said Jack.

"Why all the questions about police work?" The Doctor asked.

"Because he's been watching too much Life on Mars," said Sarah Jane pointedly. "After I specifically told him not to, no less."

"Because no one comes to our doorstep," retorted the boy, coming down the steps two at a time, "especially not anyone in big, long coats."

"He's learned a bit about teenage rebellion, I see," observed Jack with a knowing smile to Sarah Jane.

"A bit, yes," she nodded, still eyeing the Captain uncomfortably. "Luke, this is the Doctor; Doctor, this is my son."

"Hello," Luke smiled. "You traveled with my mum."

"In a matter of speaking, yes," nodded the Doctor. "I must say, you're a bit of a surprise to me."

Luke looked up at him with an open, curious expression. "Is that good or bad?"

"That's good," said Sarah Jane with a smile. "Now then, run upstairs and change, lunch is almost ready. Would the two of you care to stay?"

"Certainly!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Suddenly I'm very hungry. Why am I so hungry?" He asked as an aside to Jack.

"Side effect of the patch you're wearing," he muttered back.

"Right," the Time Lord nodded. "Anything else I should be expecting?"

"Possibly some dry mouth, and one hell of a headache in six to eight hours."

* * *

"Captain Harkness?" Sarah Jane tapped his shoulder gently as she spoke. He looked up from the sink, where he was busy washing the dishes from lunch; despite Sarah Jane's protests that she and Luke could manage, he'd insisted upon doing them himself. Jack was nothing if not a courteous guest, he'd told her, especially when dropping in with on short notice with a ravenous Time Lord in tow.

"Please, call me Jack," he commented, flashing her a charming smile. "Not even my team gives me that much respect, Ms. Smith."

She smiled back. "Certainly, Jack, but I expect the same courtesy."

"Naturally." He was glad to see that she'd eased up somewhat around him. Fun as it had been at the time, he was regretting his little prank at the door; if not for the Doctor and Luke's enthusiastic discussion of the events surrounding Luke's "birth," lunch would have been an awkward affair. Even now, she was wearing a carefully constructed mask of benign courtesy, a hostess speaking to a guest. "You were saying?"

"Oh, yes," she nodded, her body language giving away some hesitation on her part. "When you were at the door, you mentioned Luke in a rather ominous tone..."

"You want to know how much we know?" Jack finished her thought.

"Is it that obvious?" Sarah Jane grinned sheepishly. "I mean, we'd done our best to keep things quiet, and suddenly a Torchwood official shows up on my doorstop and speaks as if it were common knowledge that—"

"Sarah Jane," Jack stopped her, placing one soapy hand on her shoulder. "Yes, we know about Luke and his... _unique_ circumstance, but rest assured, you're safe. Torchwood studies alien life; we try to keep the murder of children to a minimum."

"Still," she shrugged. "It's not as if I haven't heard stories of what happens there. For all I know, you could lock him up and study him like a rat."

"Don't worry about that," Jack reassured the (seemingly) older woman. "After all, he's fully human. He deserves as normal a life as possible, and as far as I can tell, no one's more capable of giving him that than you are. I will leave you our number, though; if Luke ever needs medical attention, discretion might be advisable, and we have a crack doctor on staff."

"Why, thank you." Sarah Jane relaxed visibly, giving the captain a simple, genuine smile. "I can see why the Doctor likes you."

"Maybe you can enlighten me," he quipped. They looked out the window to the garden, where Luke and the Doctor were animatedly discussing something, wearing matching gleeful, childlike expressions.

"He's changed," observed Sarah Jane.

"That might be the understatement of the century," remarked Jack.

"No, I met this regeneration already," she said, absently running a dishtowel over a plate. "It's certainly a vocal one."

"One way to put it."

"But something's different," she continued. "I noticed it when he walked in the door. He's sad— hopeless, almost— but he doesn't want anyone to see it."

"He's lost a lot of hope recently," nodded Jack. "I think he's rethinking a lot of decisions he's made. A Time Lord midlife crisis of sorts."

Sarah Jane looked thoughtful. "Where's Rose?" She asked.

"She and her family are living on a parallel world," said Jack solemnly. "Call it a casualty of Canary Wharf."

"Oh my." She looked at her hands. "She's safe, though?"

"So I'm told," said Jack, jerking his head toward the Doctor.

"Well, that's at least a good thing," she said. "I was starting to wonder if I should be insulted that she hadn't called after leaving." They both laughed gently, more out of politeness than actual amusement. "You're his new assistant, then?"

"Oh, no," Jack shook his head. "I'm an old one. He just dragged me out for a drink."

"Thought I saw a sobriety patch on his wrist," she remarked.

"You were around for the sobriety patch?" Jack looked impressed.

"What, you think all I did was follow him around and shriek like a damsel in distress?" Sarah Jane quirked an eyebrow.

"I should have known," he grinned with a shake of his head. "Sarah Jane, you are a constant surprise."

"Why, thank you," she replied primly. "If you're an old companion, though, Torchwood must _love_ having you on staff. A friendly party with firsthand experience—"

"You seem to know a lot about Torchwood's intentions," noted Jack.

"They approached me a few years after the Doctor and I parted ways," she explained, "but I was trying to move on, and their intent sounded hardly benevolent."

"Yes, well," winced Jack, "I'm leading the reform there."

It was then that Luke wandered in, casually opening the refrigerator and snooping through it as if he hadn't just eaten a good-sized lunch. _Definitely a normal teenage boy,_ thought Jack.

"He is strange," said Luke cheerfully, "but a good strange. I like him."

"What've you two been talking about?" Sarah Jane asked.

"Life on Mars," he replied. "I told him about the show, and he told me about the planet."

"You like that show a lot, don't you?" Jack asked, to which Luke responded with a brisk nod. "What about it, the police work?"

"Yes," said Luke, "but mostly time travel. I'd like to go there."

"1973 or Mars?" Asked Sarah Jane.

"Both," he said. "Can he come to my fourteenth birthday party? Jack as well," he quickly amended.

"Fourteen?" Jack said with a questioning tone. "I didn't think you'd turned one yet."

"Technically it'll be his first birthday, yes," said Sarah Jane, "but people ask a lot of questions that are difficult to answer, so we decided to simplify it. And yes," she nodded, "they can definitely come to your birthday. That is, if they're available," she added, looking at Jack.

"It'll be my pleasure," he declared, "and the Doctor's too, I'm sure. If you'll excuse me, though, I'd like to use the little boys' room." Sarah Jane pointed him in the direction of the bathroom, but sounds of the conversation taking place in his absence made him stop just outside the kitchen to listen.

"You love him," stated Luke matter-of-factly.

"You might say that," Sarah Jane smiled, her eyes taking on that dreamy, faraway look they had when she had first introduced her son to the Doctor.

"So, you have romantic feelings for him."

"Not exactly," she shook her head slightly. "I did, once, but now... it's more like a fond memory. I'll always love him, but not as I once did."

Luke looked thoughtful for a moment. "I think I understand," he finally said.

"Luke!" The Doctor's voice preceded his actual form as the Time Lord strode into the room. "Want to see something amazing?"

The young boy's face broke into a smile. "Sure, Dad," he replied.

Both adults' faces stopped in sudden confusion. "What?" The Doctor looked to Sarah Jane, asking with his eyes whether he should respond. Luke stared at them both in turn, as if they were the ones acting strangely.

"Maria's parents are no longer married," he stated. "They no longer share romantic feelings for each other, and yet, love is still present." He looked from one to the other. "This is the same, yes?"

Sarah Jane glanced at the Doctor, an amused smile slowly spreading across her face. "I never thought of us as a married couple, much less a _divorced_ couple, but... yes, I suppose it makes sense."

The Doctor, however, appeared a good deal less comforted by this revelation. "So... I'm a father?"

"So it would seem." His reaction seemed to only further brighten the demeanor of his former companion. "Come on, now, Doctor, like it's never crossed your mind. You'd make an excellent father."

"So... I'm a father." The Doctor straightened his jacket in a rather self-important fashion. "Well... come along, er, son. Time to see something amazing." Luke's face broke into a wide smile, nodding as he followed the Doctor out the door.

"Fine, no need to ask permission," Sarah Jane called after the pair with a knowing smile.

"Hey," the Time Lord stopped, glancing back at her with a mischievous glint. "I _am_ his father, apparently. That means I've got rights!"

"Well, all right," she conceded, "but _no_ time travel!"

A trip to the bathroom could wait, Jack decided as he ducked out the front door a moment later, heading down the block to the corner where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS. The door was open when he reached it, and voices could be made out from within.

"It is bigger on the inside," said Luke. "That contradicts logic. It is impossible."

"Ah, yes," said the Doctor, "but I do so love impossible. Good friends, impossible and I."

"You'd date it," Jack remarked, sidling in the door, "if only it'd give you the time of day." The Doctor gave him a look.

"This is your ship, yes?" Luke asked. "It travels through space."

"And time," corrected the Doctor.

"Time and Relative Dimensions in Space," said the boy. "TARDIS. Mum showed me a picture." He ran a hand along the controls, unconsciously mimicking the Doctor with the care and delicacy with which he did it. "Can we go somewhere?"

"Not yet," said the Doctor apologetically. "Your mum'll kill me. But eventually, yes, you can come for a holiday. Maybe longer, even; call it 'joint custody,' and all that. Who knows, maybe Uncle Jack will deem it fit to tag along."

"What is an uncle?" Luke asked.

"You haven't heard of one?" Even knowing Luke's circumstance, Jack was surprised, but the boy shook his head. "Well," he said, "an uncle is another member of the family, except his nephew, that's you, can talk to him about all the things that can't be said to a mother and father." The Doctor looked ready to object to this definition, but this time it was Jack giving the pointed look.

* * *

"So, how was that?" Jack asked in a falsely singsong voice as the TARDIS dematerialized from the corner of Bannerman Road. After spending the day with Sarah Jane and Luke, the Doctor and the Captain had insisted that they'd imposed on the little family for too long already, exchanged numbers, and promised to call and visit. "Looks like you don't ruin the lives of those who travel with you as effectively as you thought. _They_ certainly wouldn't be a family if she hadn't known you, and don't tell me either of them would wish it were any other way."

"Fine, I'll give you that one," admitted the Doctor, "but they're the exception rather than the rule, I promise."

"Oh, quit making this so difficult," sighed Jack. "Act the sad clown all you want, but you're enriching people's lives, not destroying them."

"You're so sure?" The Time Lord laughed bitterly. "What about the ones who can't speak for themselves, the ones who die, or get lost, or get trapped?" Cold brown eyes bore into Jack's. "Or do you honestly think Rose's life is being _enriched_ right now?"

"Mood swings," the Captain muttered. "Forgot about that side effect, must be an earlier version of the compound than I'm used to."

"Don't be smart," fumed the Doctor.

"I'm sorry," said Jack with a bit of a smile, "but I really can't take what you're saying very seriously. You really expect me to believe that you wish Rose had never met you, that she was still working a dead-end job in a shop somewhere?"

"I'd rather that than making her go through what she did!" He exclaimed, sliding down the wall of the control room into a crouched position.

"I doubt _she_ feels that way."

"'One may tolerate monsters for the sake of an angel,'" the Doctor said softly, sniffing dejectedly. "Know what the last thing she said to me was? She told me she loved me."

"I figured as much," commented Jack.

"What was I supposed to say to that? I almost wanted to apologize! But instead I let my mouth wander, and the time ran out before I could tell her…" He trailed off, staring into space.

Youthful body or not, Jack had never seen the Doctor look more like a child than he did in that moment, huddled against the wall, lip quivering and on the verge of surrender into hopeless tears.

_Definitely mood swings,_ he thought.

* * *

"And then what?" Rose asked after a moment of silence.

"And then nothing," said Jack. "He dropped me off. I made him promise to keep in touch, and then off he went." He shrugged. "Turned out he brought me back a bit later than he'd intended."

"Let me guess," said Rose with an arch of her eyebrow, thinking back to her earlier conversation with Owen, "about six weeks?"

"Yup," he grinned, "but compared to _your_ first trip home, that's nothing." She laughed and stuck her tongue out at the former con man.

"Has he kept in touch, though?" She asked.

"Surprisingly enough, yes," he remarked. "It's not always clear how long it's been to him since last he called, but they seem to come through every couple of weeks or so."

"And… how is he?"

"He's mostly okay," shrugged the Captain. "Still has his dark moments, when he thinks he's been wandering too long and that it's all for nothing. It's precarious, see." Jack looked uncomfortable. "Do you understand now, why I can't let him see you? He's coping well, but a lot of that is because he's convinced himself that you're better off where you are, in the life you've made. If he thinks you're willing to drop everything to return— and you _are_, brave face or not, Rose Tyler—"

"Sorry, Jack?" Toshiko's voice interrupted them as she cracked open the door to the office. "Sorry to interrupt," she repeated, smiling guiltily, "but Owen's tests are back, and there's a bizarre genetic variant we thought you might help explain." Nodding, the Captain stood and followed Tosh out to the workstation, Rose close on his heels.

"It's right there," said Owen, using his finger to circle a section of the complicated code on the screen before him. "Seems to be harmless, but it's a mutation nonetheless."

"So I'm mutated?" Rose exclaimed indignantly.

"Genetics aren't really my thing," said Jack. "Why might I be able to explain this?"

"Because I checked this against the DNA we have on file," said the young doctor, "mainly, ours. And the only one of us to have this variant is you."

"Really, now?" Jack looked thoughtful.

"Yeah, you've got all sorts of anomalous variations in your genetic code, by the way," Owen commented. "Might want to get that checked out one day."

"I'll keep it in mind," he murmured, still deep in contemplation. "I need to run some tests on the artifact," he finally said.

"_You_ do?" Said Owen. "As in just you? As in not us? Because by all rights we were supposed to go home—" he checked his wristwatch, "—an hour ago."

Jack smiled dryly. "Go on, all of you, if you want to leave so bad."

"I'll just stick around here," said Rose, "if that's all right?"

"No way," said Owen. "It's a Friday night and we're young yet; we're going to a club, all of us. Gwen? Ianto? Tosh?"

"There were a few files I was going to look over before I called it a night," said Tosh, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of her desk.

"Nonsense," Gwen scoffed. "If I'm going, you're going. Right, Ianto?" The young Welshman didn't look convinced, but they were having none of that.

"Come on, Ianto," said Rose with a wide smile. "It could be fun."

"Well…" Ianto looked hesitant. "Okay, why not," he finally shrugged, earning a whoop from Rose. It had been ages since she'd been out on the town with friends, and that was how she'd come to view the team, even though she'd only met them that afternoon. After speaking with Jack, she wasn't quite sure what she'd found in discovering a way back to this universe, but if all she'd gained were a few friends and a trip to a club, she was determined to enjoy it as much as possible.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Author's Note: **I'm back! Sorry for the delay, but I'm back in California and back to writing. Only issue now is getting back to the UK as soon as possible.  
Way back when, I'd hoped to get this story finished by the Christmas special, much less the premiere of Torchwood's second series. Obviously that didn't happen, so this is officially an AU! Somehow that makes me proud.

* * *

"Hello, Rhys?" Gwen said loudly into her mobile. She hated the effect phones had on the volume of one's voice, but the noise of the club behind her made it necessary. 

"Gwen?" Came her boyfriend's voice on the other end. Wherever he was, it was loud there as well, and for one brief, fearful second Gwen thought he too might be in the nightclub.

"Hi," she said, wincing as a shout erupted from Rhys's end of the phone. "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah, everything's fine— oh!" Rhys replied distractedly. "A couple of the boys came over to watch the match, that all right with you?"

"Sure, that's fine. I'm, er… I'm working late tonight," she lied. "There's been a new development in a case."

"Sounds good," said Rhys, apparently not paying attention.

"Might go out for a drink with some co-workers afterward," said Gwen offhandedly, to which Rhys grunted, making her cringe. There had been a time when he'd have asked to come along, or at least commented on not being invited, but Rhys had recently seemed to accept and graciously ignore how guarded Gwen's work life was; as it turned out, it came as both a relief and an annoyance. "Talk to you later," she murmured; Rhys did not respond, too busy making enthusiastic comments about the match to his mates. With a shrug, she hung up the phone and slipped back up the steps into the club.

It wasn't an overly large affair, just a few sofas, a bar, and a dance floor, but that didn't diminish the lively energy of the place. Unfortunately, after such an awkward conversation with her supposed significant other, Gwen was hardly in the mood to appreciate it. She slumped into the seat beside Toshiko and did her best to return the Japanese woman's smile as she was handed a drink. On her other side sat Ianto, who was wincing his way through a gin and tonic. Rose, she could see, had coaxed Owen into joining her on the dance floor, where the two of them seemed to be having a good enough time, even if neither looked to be particularly skilled at dancing. All in all, it was precisely the place Gwen didn't want to be.

After a few songs, Owen and Rose sweatily stumbled back to the rest of the team, grinning giddily and laughing about some private joke.

"Everyone good on drinks?" Owen asked, looking around.

"I'll buy the next round," offered Rose, but Owen waved her off.

"Not a chance. Both literally and figuratively, your money's no good here." Biting her lip sheepishly as she realized he was right, the blonde shrugged in assent. "What'll you have, then?" Asked Owen.

"Er, vodka cranberry?" Rose shrugged. "Do people still drink those? I dunno, it's been a bit since I've been out to one of these places."

"It'll do fine," Owen assured her.

"Careful, Rose," said Gwen, as if jokingly, "Owen's got a thing for girls he meets at work."

The change in the air was tangible; the young doctor's face sank into a scowl as he glared at her, and while Rose didn't know quite what was going on, she sensed that an exit was preferable to watching this imminent confrontation unfold.

"Ianto," she said quickly, "come dance with me." The Welshman looked conflicted, torn between desperately wanting to escape and desperately _not_ wanting to go on the dance floor, but Rose was not going to let him refuse. "Come on," she repeated, tugging his hand, "I can't go out there all alone, I'll get eaten alive." Although still visibly reluctant, Ianto followed her away from the sofa. Toshiko mumbled something about buying more drinks and made her exit, leaving Gwen and Owen alone, staring at each other.

"What the hell was that?" He snarled.

"I was joking," she shrugged unconvincingly. "It was supposed to be a joke."

"Bollocks! You've had it in for me for weeks now!"

"Oh, get off your high horse," Gwen scoffed. "It's not like you haven't sniped back your share of times. And I'm just saying, don't look to me when Jack gets stroppy 'cause you're trying to pull one of his friends."

"Like he could talk," muttered Owen. They sat in silence for a moment, the pulsing beat of the music doing nothing to disguise it. "This is about Diane, isn't it?" He finally said.

"Get over yourself," said Gwen, a little too quickly.

"Not a chance," quipped the physician. "You're put out because I met someone else and didn't feel the need to let you know. As if you were _entitled_ to know. As if we were in a _relationship_." He laughed mirthlessly. "Come on, Gwen, you of all people know that that's the last thing we were, so don't start acting like I owe you an explanation."

"You're right," she said after a pause. "It's no business of mine who your fuck buddies are." She looked away for a moment, but try as she might to leave it at that, Gwen was compelled to keep talking. "You could have at least mentioned her, is all. Just in passing. And were you ever going to tell me about Suzie?"

"What?" Owen looked flabbergasted.

"I mean, a quick thing like Diane, I can understand keeping it quiet, but it sounded to me like you and Suzie were a fairly well-established… well, not 'relationship,' obviously, but—"

"I loved her," said Owen.

"…Wow," Gwen stammered. "That's unexpected. Granted, it was before I came 'round, but she did try to _kill_ me, so you can't fault me for being a little surprised."

"Not Suzie, you twonk," he sighed exasperatedly, "Diane. I loved her, and she knew that, and she left anyway, so be careful where you throw the words 'quick thing,' okay?" Gwen, unable to respond properly, simply bit her lip and looked away. Neither spoke, both being too lost in their own thoughts to bother verbalizing them. Finally, Owen spoke again, distantly and sadly.

"Why am I so easy to put aside, Gwen?"

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"I told her I loved her, and she chose the bloody Rift over me. And look at you; you never took me seriously," he said accusingly. "All the time we were seeing each other, you never once considered leaving that lump of a boyfriend."

"You weren't interested in anything real," said Gwen. "You specifically said you weren't."

"Yeah, well, not all of us say what we mean all the time," remarked Owen. "You should be used to that, with all the lies you tell him." He had that Owen-look of his again, where so many deriding comments were fighting to escape that he was having difficulty condensing them into one statement. "Damn it, Gwen, when are you going to realize he's not worth it?"

"Is that what this is about?" Gwen's mouth fell open in shock. "You're jealous of Rhys? You've never even met him!"

"I don't need to," he said. "I see you, quietly suffering, being the perfect little martyr you are."

"You don't understand," she protested. "He may not be perfect, but he puts up with everything I throw at him, and that's something to his credit."

"Yeah, and you're only just putting up with him, aren't you?" Gwen didn't reply. "Now, I'm not the go-to for romantic advice, but I know that mere tolerance does not a functional relationship make, for anyone, much less you. You just… deserve better." He shrugged, the picture of carefully-planned nonchalance. "I'm not saying I'm that 'better,' but I'm saying it exists, and I think you know that too."

"Are you trying to tell me you're in love with me?" She suddenly asked.

He quirked a wry grin. "Don't flatter yourself, Cooper."

The sudden break of tension made her giggle, which gradually set him off, until both were shaking with laughter and blinking back hysterical tears.

"I may live to regret this statement," she sighed, "but I like you, Owen Harper."

"_Doctor_ Owen Harper," he corrected.

"Like I said, regret," she replied with a sardonic smile. "But seriously, isn't there a way that we can put this behind us and just… be friendly?"

"Give him the boot," maintained Owen.

"Honestly, he's not all bad," she protested.

"That, my dear, is the sound of settling," he said. "Without that, all I'll be able to manage is cordial."

"Fine then, can we be cordial, with the potential of friendliness?"

He smiled. "Deal."

* * *

Meanwhile on the dance floor, Rose's attention was torn between watching Owen and Gwen have it out (without being an obvious voyeur, of course), and forcing Ianto to move in a way that nearly resembled dancing. 

"Wouldn't you think that, with all the paperwork required for nearly every other circumstance, Torchwood would have tighter reins on workplace relationships?" She asked conversationally. A similar discussion had taken place in the alternate Torchwood Three with that Ianto, but she chose not to mention that fact.

"Yes, well, Jack and I agreed to keep things discreet and professional during work," the Welshman replied offhandedly. Rose's look of abject astonishment made him freeze in place.

"I was talking about Gwen and Owen," she clarified haltingly.

"Ah."

"Jack didn't mention you and he were—"

"Clearly." Ianto looked thoughtful.

"You're trying to decide whether to be insulted," observed Rose with a grin that made Ianto blush.

"It's really unsettling, you know," he remarked, "having someone around you've just met who already knows all about you."

"Actually,_ that_ look I know from someone else," she reassured him, thinking of Mickey. "This is nowhere to talk," she shouted over the music. "Come with me!" Rose fought her way over to a quieter corner, Ianto trailing behind. "Really, though," she said, "now you _have_ to tell me."

"There's really not much to tell," he shrugged, looking away. "We seem to be deliberately avoiding the subject, in words at least."

"Jack's never been one for talking when he could be acting," observed Rose. "You thought he told me, though, that much is clear."

"You seem to know everything else about me," he remarked. "That you didn't know about Jack and I just didn't quite occur to me."

"That must be really weird for you," she winced. "Sorry. I'm really trying to treat you as a different person, just someone I already know I get on with quite well."

"Thank you," he said. "I suppose I'd rather hoped he told you, to be quite honest. Just to know that whatever we are is worth mentioning."

"I'll badger him about it later," she assured him. "Maybe he didn't say anything because I know you. I mean, Jack's never really been one for a steady boyfriend, at least not while we were traveling."

"I don't mind that," said Ianto. "I don't even really mind being nothing but a shag to him. I just wish…" he trailed off, brow furrowing in thought. "They all used to treat me like I was invisible," he said. "Now they all treat me like glass. I'd hoped that starting up with Jack would change that, at least in his eyes, but now he's just tiptoeing around me in a whole new and entirely aggravating arena."

"Is he your first since Lisa?" Rose asked suddenly.

"Er, yes," said Ianto.

"Does he know that?"

"Yes."

"Then maybe he's feeling like your rebound," she pointed out. "I didn't even need to know you to see that you weren't over her when I mentioned her. Again, sorry about that." She looked sheepish for a moment, but quickly moved on. "I'd be treating you delicately too. People's pasts are tricky; no one knows when they're supposed to hold on and when they're supposed to let go of it, and the idea of making the wrong decision is terrifying."

"What about your past?" Ianto asked, taking Rose aback.

"What do you know about that?"

"I don't need to," he remarked, a ghost of a smile on his face. "Call it 'recognizing my own problems in others.'" Rose smiled despite herself, and quite suddenly threw her arms around the young man. While a little surprised, Ianto returned the hug wholeheartedly.

"Rose! Iant— oh," Toshiko skidded to a stop in front of the still-embracing couple. "Sorry," she said.

"Nothing to worry about, Tosh" assured Ianto, detaching himself from the blonde. "You needed something?"

She nodded briskly. "Jack's called."

"Shall I round up the others?" Ianto asked.

"Not yet," she said. "All he said was he needed to confirm something with Rose."

"Really?" Rose shrugged. "Don't know how much help I'll be. Technology's never been my strong point." Tosh held out her earpiece, which Rose slipped on with practiced ease. "Jack?"

"Rose," came the Captain's voice. "I need to ask you something."

"Sure, what is it?"

"Who's Sterling?"


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Author's Note: **There's a pretty good chance I'm about to be late for work, but I had a marathon typing session last night and I will be _damned _if I don't get this published today!  
In other news, hello. Certainly been a while, hasn't it? If I have anything to say about it, it won't be nearly as long next time. The AU-ness keeps piling up now that "Journey's End" has aired, but no matter; AU or not, I'm attached to this little story of mine.

* * *

"So there I was, examining it," said Jack, "when suddenly I wasn't there anymore."

"You got it to work?"

Jack was clearly trying very hard to not look as if this made him the least bit proud, but couldn't keep himself from a smug smile. "Not too hard," he shrugged. "I just picked it up after the energy readings read at capacity again, and suddenly found myself staring at a man who's _definitely_ not on our payroll." He looked at Rose with a quirk of one eyebrow. "Cute, by the way. Yours?"

"Not strictly, no," she replied, although unable to keep a bit of a blush from her cheeks.

"Gave him a bit of a nasty shock when I arrived," he remarked. "Seemed to think you'd turned into a boy on him. Which is ridiculous of course; you'd look nothing like me as a man."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Rose with a giggle.

"Can't believe you got it to work," Tosh murmured, looking over the data the computer had logged. "Did you get any closer to figuring out _how_ it works?"

"As a matter of fact, I did," said Jack, "in no small thanks to Mister Sterling Davies."

"He worked out part of it last time," said Rose. "The electromagnetic field thing."

"Yes," nodded Jack. "That's where it's getting its power, but actually operating it once it's charged is another issue altogether."

"What is it, then?" Asked Gwen.

"Artron energy," Jack replied, with a tone that suggested this was a very interesting find indeed.

"What?" Rose asked. "Never heard of it."

"Yes, you have," assured Jack, "although he might not have called it that. Remember 'background radiation?'"

After a split second, realization flashed across the young blonde's face.

"Which got me to thinking," the Captain continued, "and I checked out some of the machinery inside it against some of the older archived Torchwood files." Having completely given up on looking nonchalant, Jack's face was now etched with the exuberance of making his discovery. "Rose, it's Time Lord technology."

"You're kidding. It can't be!"

"It is," he assured her. "Well, I use the term 'Time Lord technology' pretty loosely. A rudimentary bastardization is closer to home. Whoever built this had clearly seen the inside of a TARDIS before, and decided to build one of their own."

"But the Doctor always said TARDISes are grown, not built," said Rose. "Right?"

"Right, but this person didn't know that," Jack pointed out. "Otherwise they wouldn't have even attempted it. Really, it shouldn't work at all; someone was either a genius or very, very lucky. Both, probably." Picking the device up off the table, he held it out in front of Rose. "Look at it for a moment and tell me it doesn't look like it fits into the TARDIS controls." She had to admit, he was right; the rounded trapezoid shape made it the perfect size to fit into the ring of panels that surrounded the central column. The Doctor's controls, however, were much more haphazard than this, covered in levers, wheels, and various other sticky-outy bits that appeared to have been improvised replacements for damaged components. It was cluttered, but in a comfortable, happy sort of way. This device seemed to be much more economical in design, with nothing but that one little switch disturbing the smooth surface, gently glowing lights, and scrolling Greek characters.

"A bit more streamlined, to be sure," said Jack, noting Rose's appraising eye, "but no less true. Seems to me that someone thought they could make it better. Yes, try to improve the design of the _time machine. _Honestly, the audacity of some people. Stupid—"

"Apes?" Rose interjected with a grin. "Now, why does that sound familiar?"

"'Scuse me?" Owen waggled his fingers a bit in their direction. "Mind explaining a bit for those of us _not_ in the little club you've got going there?"

"Takes more than just 'a bit' of explaining." Rose smiled sheepishly and took a step back from the workstation, judiciously ignoring the pointed 'be quiet' look the Captain was aiming at her. "Jack and I used to travel together with a man called—"

"—the Doctor," cut in Ianto.

"You know about it?" Tosh asked. Gwen and Owen joined in looking at the Welshman with newfound interest.

"I worked under the old Torchwood," shrugged Ianto. "Everyone knew about the Doctor then, and what are the chances that they're talking about someone _else_ who travels in time and space?"

"Excellent deduction," smiled Rose sweetly, elbowing Jack as a less-than-subtle hint that he should get the nervous look off his face. He could be as mysterious about his past as he liked when she wasn't around, but there wasn't time to be angst-ridden about it now. He sighed, getting the message, and continued the explanation on his own.

"The TARDIS, the Doctor's ship, takes a lot of power to keep running, power it got from the energy of the Time Vortex. He liked to call it 'background radiation,' but it's properly known as Artron energy. It's harmless to humans; I mean, it's constantly bleeding out of the Rift all around here with no ill effect. Traveling through the Vortex, though, is a bit different. It changes you, just a bit; nothing harmful about it, just different. Barely noticeable."

"That'll be the genetic variant, then?" Gwen offered.

"Exactly," said Jack with a wink as he turned back to the artifact, "and that's where this gets brilliant. See, the variant acts as a key, and the device unlocks itself accordingly. Without it, it'll just sit there."

"So what you're saying is, you can't use it unless you've already done it before. Traveled in the Vortex, I mean," said Tosh. "That's fascinating!"

"The designer probably didn't even know he was doing it," said Jack. "Sterling reckoned it was an accidental addition while trying to tune it into the Vortex. Like I said, this guy had to be very, very lucky."

"How do you control it, then?" Rose asked. "Streamlined is all well and good, but if you've no idea where you're headed, it seems a little pointless to me."

"Right you are," grinned Jack, "and this is where your little friend Sterling came in really handy." He turned the artifact over, careful not to touch it too long for fear of it reactivating. "Look in there," he said, pointing at a spot inside the translucent outer covering. "See that little lumpy tangle of circuits?" She nodded. "That's a setup for empathic navigation. It forms a low-level telepathic link with the user, so that you only have to think of a destination in time and space for it to take you there."

"Sophisticated," said Tosh.

"That," agreed Jack, "and centuries ahead of its time. This time, that is, and granted, there's nothing to suggest that the creator is contemporary. Regardless, I'd love to meet him."

"It's definitely from this universe, though, right?" Rose asked. "I mean, no one knows Greek back… there."

"We can't know that for certain," said Toshiko. "We're talking about an exponential number of parallel worlds; the lack of Greek is most likely the exception rather than the rule, I'd think."

"No," said Jack resolutely, "it's definitely from here. The way I understand it, it's tuned to _this_ Vortex, which is completely unique and unlike any other universe's. It has to be from this one, and judging by the choice language, probably Earth."

"But you said the designer had to have seen the inside of a TARDIS," protested Rose. "That means whoever built this had to have traveled with the Doctor."

That gave Jack pause. "Not necessarily," he said, but with a definite note of hesitation in his voice. "Other Time Lords have visited Earth."

"They weren't the type to take on companions, though," maintained Rose. "Not the way he tells it, anyway. And besides, he's the last of his kind; the rest were wiped from the time line with the end of the Time War. It's got to be one of his… one of us."

"But… no!" Jack was still unwilling to believe it. "He doesn't take just anyone, you know that. There's no way he'd let someone onboard who'd be this stupid."

"Maybe not intentionally," she said, "but look at the state of us. He said it himself; we freeze in place when he leaves us behind, clutching at any way to regain that sense of adventure. What if someone tried to catch up with him again?"

"He'd have picked something up on sensors," said Jack. "The TARDIS would notice, at the very least."

"How d'you know he didn't?" Gwen suddenly asked. "Not the sort of thing he'd mention in passing, is it?"

They considered this. "You're right," nodded Jack, "but there's no way of knowing if he did or not."

"Why not ring him up?" said Owen, tone suggesting he thought he was stating the obvious.

"Actually, yes," thought Jack for a moment. "Why _not_ ring him up?" Looking at the rest of the team, he jerked his head toward the stairs. "Conference room."

"Why the conference room?" Rose asked as they took the steps two at a time.

"Speakerphone, of course," he said offhandedly. "You want to listen in, don't you? And I know _you_ all do," he remarked a bit louder over his shoulder to the other four Torchwood agents following them.

"Oi! You can't blame us for being curious!" Gwen cried with good-natured indignation.

"I'd call it 'nosy,'" Jack snorted.

"We investigate aliens, sir," said Ianto evenly. "Nosiness might as well be in the job description."

Arriving in the room, they assembled around the table. Jack took a moment before dialing and looked around at them, pausing meaningfully on Rose.

"If at all possible, we don't let him know it's not just me on the line," he said. "No mention of the device unless he _has_ picked it up on his sensors, and definitely no mention of Rose. Understand?" The rest of the team nodded, but Rose held his gaze for a moment first.

She knew he was right. If the Doctor was as fragile as Jack said, if he truly believed he was doing them, his companions, more harm than good, he couldn't know they'd found evidence of someone trying to follow him. They pretty clearly hadn't succeeded, if the device had washed up through the Rift in another universe. What that meant for its original operator, no one could say, but between the Vortex and the Void, it certainly didn't look good, and knowing that would only hurt the Doctor more. This was for his own protection. But why did it still feel wrong?

As for knowing about her, she had to trust that Jack felt as strongly as he did for a reason. She wasn't sure what would happen to her semblance of self-control on the issue once she heard his voice, but only time would tell.

Firmly matching his stare, she nodded, and the Captain began to dial.

* * *

One ring.

Two rings.

Three rings.

Rose was just beginning to think he'd stepped out, and was trying to think back to whether she'd ever heard mention of a TARDIS answering machine, when he picked up in the middle of the fourth ring.

"Jack!" said the Doctor, in the same exuberant voice that had haunted her dreams for three years. "Isn't this a surprise? Normally I call you. I was planning to do just that pretty soon, in fact. Was working out who to tell your team I was this time; what do you think of me being your very stern ex-schoolmaster?"

"I'd rather not, actually," Jack laughed. "How've you been, Doc?"

"Brilliant," said the Time Lord. "_Molto bene_. I've even been trying out _très bien_ lately, what d'you think of it?"

"I'd have to hear it in context," said Jack.

"Suppose so," agreed the Doctor. "Really, though, I'm doing well. Better than I've been in ages."

"Really?"

"Definitely," he said. "I think I'm finally moving on, you know? Feeling like I can move forward again."

Jack looked surprised at this, his eyes flicking to Rose before he could stop himself. "That… that's great," he finally said.

"To what do I owe this call, Captain?" The Doctor asked. "Not that I don't enjoy hearing from you, but 'Captain Jack Harkness, Man of Action' isn't really the type to ring without reason."

"Right you are," he agreed. "We've been getting readings from the Vortex—"

"Jack," the Doctor cut in with a decidedly stern tone, "I thought I told you not to mess about with the Vortex."

"We're not 'messing about' with it," protested Jack, sounding every bit like the petulant schoolchild. "We're just taking readings from it, and we found a signature I don't recognize. Any chance you've noticed anything unusual? Signals from any other time-ships around here, that sort of thing?"

"Sorry, no," said the Time Lord. "Haven't been in the area lately. Haven't been much of anywhere lately."

"Staying in one place, are we?" Jack remarked. "That's so unlike you. Where and when have struck such a fancy?"

"Versailles, actually," said the Doctor. "1760. An excellent year, for the most part."

"Any alien threat?"

"No," he said with a ghost of a laugh. "Not anymore.

"Listen, I should go, but it's really great to hear from you, Jack. I'll make sure to call soon."

"I'll hold you to it," said Jack. "Luke's birthday's pretty soon, or have you already gone?"

"Not yet, but I'll be there. Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Well, until then, Doctor."

"Captain," said the Doctor with an audible grin, before hanging up the phone.

Rose let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Looking down, she noticed that she'd been gripping the table so hard that her knuckles went white. Rubbing them a bit, she looked back up to see Jack eyeing her concernedly.

"How was that for you?" He asked.

"All right, I think," she said unconvincingly. "It's good to hear that he's doing better."

"And we got our answer," said Gwen. "He hasn't had any unusual contact or readings, so whoever made the device didn't find him after all."

"Or hasn't thought to look there yet," countered Jack. "Time travel's tricky that way; things don't always happen in the right order. You're right for now, though, and that puts us back at square one."

"Wonder what he's doing there," wondered Ianto aloud.

"What does anyone do in pre-Revolutionary France?" Owen remarked.

Jack laughed, and made a comment that was probably suggesting _exactly_ what one does, but Rose wasn't paying attention. Owen's words had triggered a memory that the simple date the Doctor mentioned hadn't:

_What's pre-Revolutionary France doing on a spaceship?_

"I know what he's doing there," she said gravely, making them all hush and look at her. "He's with Reinette."


End file.
